Baby Z's tied to Childhood Obesity

Whitney Everett/Baby Z’s tied to childhood obesity/April 11, 2008/10:50pm/ post 12

A recent study has showing that babies getting twelve hours of sleep a day reduces their risk of being overweight by the time they reach preschool. This new connection between infant sleep and health effects shows just how important this information is in the battle to control the growing epidemic of childhood obesity in the United States. One-fourth of children two to five years of age are either overweight or at risk of being overweight. Studies have shown that restricting sleep changes hormone levels that in turn stimulate hunger. A doctor of Harvard Medical School found that even after taking into account the mothers Body Mass Index, infants who slept less than twelve hours a day had a higher BMI for their age and sex, higher skinfold thickness and were more likely to be overweight at age three than children who slept twelve hours or more as infants. They found that they amount of TV watching had a slim to none effect on the association between sleep and overweight but the combination of not enough sleep and more time in front of the television caused the highest risk of weight problems.

I believe this is an interesting article because in never knew just how important sleep is for babies. I knew that they slept a lot and this was important but I never knew there was link between sleeping and being overweight as a preschooler. I suggest to new parents of infants to make srue they are getting proper amounts of sleep and not watching TV for toddlers. This goes to show just how much sleep does effect your body in a positive and negative way.

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