Nursery World - Health & Well-Being: Obesity

With a recent study linking obesity to insufficient sleep, Meredith Jones Russell asks how practitioners and parents can ensure that children get enough rest day and night

With 14,787 of 629,359 Reception-aged children in England and Wales now classed as severely obese, worries about young people’s weight are ever-increasing. Now, research claims, children who get less than the recommended amount of sleep for their age are at higher risk of developing obesity.

Academics at the University of Warwick found that children who sleep less regularly gain more weight when they get older and are more likely to become overweight or obese.

The paper, published in the journal Sleep, followed 75,499 children aged from birth to 18 for an average period of three years. Their average sleep duration was assessed through a variety of methods, including questionnaires and wearable technology.

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