Children Who Don’t Get Enough Sleep Consume More Junk

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by StudyFinds.

When children don’t get enough sleep, parents don’t get enough sleep. Apparently, another thing these sleep-deprived children can’t get enough of is food. There appears to be a strong correlation with poor sleep affecting a child’s appetite in a not-so-healthy way, according to a recent study.

Scientists at the University of Otago in New Zealand reveal that children who don’t get enough sleep eat more calories than their well-rested peers. The study reports that sleep-deprived kids ate 96 more calories from junk food and slightly less healthy food than they otherwise would. After accounting for extra calories, the young ones burnt by being awake for longer ate 63 more calories in a day.

The little ones who lost the most sleep had even bigger changes to what they ate at mealtimes and how much junk food they consumed. Children who lounged around more ate more junk food and more in the evening while exercising, led them to eat more healthy food.

For the study, the team analyzed data on 105 eight to 12-year-old kids who took part in the Daily, Rest, Eating, and Activity Monitoring (DREAM) clinical trial. Just over three-fifths (61 percent) of participants were of a healthy weight, while the rest of them were overweight or obese.

The findings were presented at The International Congress on Obesity in Melbourne, Australia.

Source: StudyFinds
https://studyfinds.org/sleep-affecting-child-appetite/