Technology and caffeine may lead to adolescent lack of sleep and obesity?
You may remember, my post on how lack of sleep may predispose you to obesity. Well at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, a presented abstract strengthens this association in adolescents. The study authors concluded that the lack of sleep may be related to caffeine intake, increased technology use and sleep disorders like snoring and that these things are associated with adolescent obesity.
Lead author Amy Drescher, PhD, University of Arizona in Tucson’s study results show a decrease in sleep trend with increased television and computer viewing, video games, caffeine and higher body mass index (BMI). The study gathered data from 320 children who completed detailed dietary and physical activity questionnaires. Mean age of the study group was 13.3 years; 51.8 percent of participants were male, 65 percent were Caucasian and 35 percent were Hispanic.
There are numerous sleep studies that are consistent with these results but these were mostly done in adults. This is one of the first to be done in adolescents and may help partially explain links between obese adolescents’ poorer school performance, well-being and overall health.
How would you change your habits or those of your children based on these results? The link between caffeine, television, video games and other technology seems to be that they stimulate the brain. Thus the obvious approach would be to limit the hours of screen time, especially closer to bed time when the brain should be winding down before sleeping.
Likewise, I tell all my patients who are having sleep difficulties to remove the TV from their bedrooms, and avoid caffeinated beverages after 6 pm. The snoring and sleep disorders that were also associated with obesity are more complex and may require a visit to a family physician or sleep medicine doctor that may be able to do a sleep study, especially if there is significant day time sleepiness.
If you are concerned about your child’s obesity and poor sleeping patterns, and reducing TV and caffeine use doesn’t improve matters, I suggest a visit to your primary care physician for a complete work up to look for other causes.
Link: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/153366.php
