Sending kids to bed early ''keeps them slim''
30/09/2011
Making sure kids are in their children's beds early is important for keeping them slim, researchers have discovered.
Experts from the University of South Australia studied 2,200 Australian youngsters between the ages of nine and 16 to find a correlation between bed times and weight.
Youngsters who went to bed late and got up late were 1.5 times more likely to become obese than those who slept and rose earlier.
"Scientists have realised in recent years that children who get less sleep tend to do worse on a variety of health outcomes, including the risk of being overweight and obese," said study author Dr Carol Maher, from the University of South Australia.
She suggested that the trend could be due to the reason that mornings are more conducive to physical activity than evenings.
The average early bedtime was found to be 21:20, while a late bedtime was 22:40.
Posted by Michael Ewing
