Early Bedtime for Preschoolers Could Cut Obesity Risk by Half

Putting your preschoolers in bed by 8:00 p.m. could halve their chances of becoming obese later in life, according to a new study.

Putting your\r\npreschoolers in bed by 8:00 p.m. could halve their chances of becoming obese\r\nlater in life, according to a new study.

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Writing inThe\r\nJournal of Pediatrics, researchers from the Ohio State University College\r\nof Public Health saybedtimes after 9:00 p.m. appear to double the risk of\r\nobesity.

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“For parents, this reinforces\r\nthe importance of establishing a bedtime routine,” said Sarah Anderson, lead\r\nauthor and associate professor of epidemiology.

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“It’s something concrete\r\nthat families can do to lower their child’s risk and it’s also likely to have\r\npositive benefits on behavior and on social, emotional and cognitive\r\ndevelopment.”

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Excess weight among\r\nchildren in the United States is on the rise and a major health concern, with\r\naround 17 percent of children and adolescents, 12.7 million, considered obese,\r\naccording to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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For the study,\r\nresearchers used data from 977 children who are part of the Study of Early\r\nChild Care and Youth Development project that follows healthy babies born in\r\n1991 in 10 U.S. cities.

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These children, who were\r\n4 ½ years old at the time, were divided into three groups, those who went to\r\nbed by 8:00 p.m. or earlier, those who went to bed between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00\r\np.m. and those whose bedtimes were after 9:00 p.m.

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When these children\r\nturned 15, the researchers looked at the rates of obesity.

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For those with the\r\nearliest bedtimes, only one out of 10 was obese, compared to 16 percent of\r\nthose who went to bed between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. and 23 percent for those\r\nwith the latest bedtimes.

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Half of the children\r\nwent to bed between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m., researchers said, while the rest\r\nwere evenly divided between early and late bedtimes.

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Anderson said putting\r\nchildren in bed early doesn’t mean they will immediately fall asleep, but that\r\nit makes it “more likely that children will get the amount of sleep they need\r\nto be at their best.

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“It’s important to\r\nrecognize that having an early bedtime may be more challenging for some\r\nfamilies than for others,” Anderson said. “Families have many competing demands\r\nand there are tradeoffs that get made. For example, if you work late, that can\r\npush bedtimes later in the evening.”

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