Insufficient sleep in early childhood has been discovered to
be a big risk factor for obesity. There
was a new study done by the Massachusetts General Hospital for Children. The researchers analyzed the long-term
effects of sleep on kids 6 months old to 7 years. The researchers measured sleeping patterns
including naps, and when the kids reached seven years old the researchers
measured their height, weight, abdominal fat, lean body mass, waist
circumference and hip circumference.
Their “rubric” to measure inadequate sleep was for children ages 6
months to 2 years- anything under 12 hours was not good and for kids between
ages 3 and 4 anything less than 10 hours was bad; and for children between ages
5 and 7 anything less than 9 hours was insufficient. The kids were given sleep scores from a scale
of 0 to 13 0 being the lowest. Children
with lower scores had measurements of obesity.
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/05/19/poor-sleep-linked-to-obesity-risk-for-children/