Less sleep makes children more easily overweight

When children do not get enough sleep, their weight will be more difficult to control. Recent research by American scientists on more than 2,000 children has confirmed that.

More and more children are obese.(Photo: chinaview.cn)

Researchers at Northwestern University surveyed 2,182 children, through diaries, recording all of their day activities, including bedtime, number of hours of sleep and time to wake up.

" Our work shows that going to bed earlier, waking up later and going to school later can be a relatively inexpensive solution to addressing child obesity ," Emily Snell, partner of study, say.

Children are divided into 2 groups, from 3 to 8 years old and from 8 to 13 years old. They found that every 1 hour of extra sleep reduced the risk of obesity in the first group of children from 36 to 30%, and reduced the risk of the second group from 34 to 30%.

" Just one hour of extra sleep is enough to make a big difference in your child's weight ," Snell said.

According to Snell, it seems that lack of sleep has impacted on hormones that stimulate appetite, which makes children tired and reduce mobility.

T. An