Longer sleep means slimmer kids?

More and more research indicates that sufficient sleep helps to prevent overweight and obesity. Lack of sleep may lead to hormonal disturbances related to increased likelihood to gain unnecessary weight and become overweight, and lack of sleep may also be associated with lower physical activity and exercise levels or my lead to overeating. In our ENERGY study data we have now also explored the association between sleep habits and weight status in 10-12 year old schoolchildren across 7 countries in Europe. Few studies have differentiated between weekday and weekend day sleep duration in their association with indicators of weight status in children. Therefore, we examined the association of week and weekend day sleep duration with indicators of body composition, i.e. measured body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC). The paper presenting the results of these analyses is now published in the journal PLOS One. In our analyses we adjusted for other behaviors that have been found te be associated with overweight/obesity (dietary, physical; activity and sedentary behaviors). Our results confirmed earlier findings that kids who sleep have lower BMIs and WCs. The association with weekday sleep were stronger than for weekend sleep.