Here’s another reason to get the kids to bed early: More sleep may lower their risk of becoming obese. Researchers have found that every additional hour per night a third-grader spends sleeping reduces the child’s chances of being obese in sixth grade by 40 percent. The less sleep they got, the more likely the children were to be obese in sixth grade, no matter what the child’s weight was in third grade, said Dr. Julie Lumeng of the University of Michigan, who led the research. If there was a magic number for the third-graders, it was nine hours, 45 minutes of sleep. Sleeping more than that lowered the risk significantly. […]
Those parental pleas for children to go to bed can now be delivered with a little extra heft. Beginning with elementary schools in Duluth, the National Institutes of Health is undertaking a publicity campaign to persuade children to get more sleep. For years, the NIH has targeted specific groups, including drivers, soldiers and astronauts, with the message that they need solid sleep to be healthy and perform well. Now the message is being brought to children ages 7 to 11. “Whatever children do, they will do it better if they are well rested,” said Carl Hunt, director of NIH’s National Center on Sleep Disorders Research. Hunt said research shows that […]