A discrepancy of just thirty minutes between the time children go to bed on school nights and the time they go to bed on holidays could have a detrimental influence on their waist circumference and weight, warns a new study.
If we already knew that poor quality sleep can have undesirable repercussions on health, this research complicates the situation by adding to the equation a factor that has apparently gone under the radar until now.
“This study shows that going to bed too late during the week has deleterious impacts, and the same thing on weekends, but especially if there is a big difference between these hours,” summarized Dr. Mélanie Henderson, who is a pediatrician. endocrinologist at CHU Sainte-Justine.
The Finnish authors of this study carried out a longitudinal analysis of approximately 5000 children aged 9 to 12 years. They found that a later bedtime on days off ― and fluctuations in bedtime ― at age 11 were associated with adding 0.6 centimeters to the waist circumference two and a half years later.
While this may seem modest, said Dr. Henderson, it should be kept in mind that this is a “cumulative” effect that will lead to increased risk over time, especially as it will be probably associated with other elements, such as eating habits.
In fact, she says, those who sleep little will experience what she calls “false hunger” and will tend to seek out calorie-dense, high-calorie foods for energy, which can then lead to weight.
Those who sleep little are also more likely to have greater central fatness ― compared to more generalized adiposity ― which can be particularly harmful to health, said Dr. Henderson. This could explain the increased waist circumference seen by Finnish researchers.
An hour or two later
Researchers found, on average, that children went to bed an hour later on days off compared to school days. One in eight children, however, went to bed two hours later.
This delay before going to bed and a later bedtime were more frequent among young people who spent a lot of time on a screen.
“Based on our findings and those of other researchers, we hypothesize that the lack of uniformity in bedtime and sleep times is likely due to screen time and socializing with peers,” report so the authors in the Journal of Sleep Research.
This could lead to a “circadian dysregulation” that interferes with metabolism, they add.
“Clinically, I very frequently see young people who have very late bedtimes because they are behind their screens playing video games or watching videos. […] and it interferes with sleep duration and sleep quality,” Dr. Henderson confirmed.
The fact that teenagers go to bed at a “reasonable time” during the week, but much later on the weekend, will have an effect on their sleep, “and we know that these effects have a propensity to have harmful effects on health, including a greater risk of obesity,” said Dr. Henderson.
“What I explain to my patients is that if you go to bed at 10:30 a.m. on weeknights, but on Friday and then Saturday evening you go to bed at 4 a.m., by Sunday evening, it It’s as if you had gone to Europe during the weekend for your body,” she illustrated, agreeing with the Finnish researchers.
Further analysis showed the researchers that the association between bedtime and greater adiposity was only one-way: children with fluctuating bedtimes had greater adiposity, but a genetic predisposition to more adiposity. more important did not seem to be responsible for the delay before going to bed.
Moreover, on a biological level, can we read in the study, previous studies have shown that a later bedtime is associated with poorer quality sleep. In particular, the sleep cycle during which the body repairs and grows could be absent.
“It reminds parents that children should not go to bed late in the week or on weekends,” concluded Dr. Henderson. There shouldn’t be any big delays. Young people who chronically have a very late bedtime during the week and much later on weekends, it interferes with the quality of their sleep, the duration of their sleep too, and in the long term, what we see, is that it has significant and persistent impacts over time. »