Sleep Duration and Risk for Overweight

Shorter Sleep Duration in Infancy is Associated with an Increased Risk of Childhood Overweight

A recent study titled, “Short Sleep Duration in Infancy and Risk of Childhood Overweight” by Taveras et al. published in Archives of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine found that infants who slept for less than 12 hours a day were twice as likely to be overweight at three years of age than infants who slept greater than 12 hours a day.  The authors followed 915 children from Project Viva, a prospective cohort study of maternal and offspring health outcomes of urban and suburban women, and asked mothers questions about their infant’s sleep habits at six months, one year, and two years of age.  The authors adjusted their analysis for numerous factors that are independently associated with increased adiposity in children, including maternal education, income, prepregnancy BMI, marital status, prenatal smoking history, breastfeeding duration, child’s race, birth weight, 6 month weight-for length z score, daily television viewing, and daily active play.  The authors conclude, that “strategies to improve sleep duration among young children may be an important component of behavioral interventions that promote childhood overweight prevention.”

According to the authors, “this is the first study to report associations of infant sleep duration and child adiposity.”  The study’s strengths include collecting longitudinal data on sleep duration from six months of age, using measured values of adiposity, such as subscapular and triceps skinfold thickness and height and weight, and adjustment for a number of sociodemographic and environmental predictors of childhood overweight.  Some limitations of the study include recall of the mothers of their infants’ sleep habits, a high education and income level of study participants, and the inability to adjust for all possible confounders of this association. 

*Taveras, E.M., Rifas-Shiman, S.L., Oken, E., Gunderson, E.P., & Gillman, M.W. (2008). Short sleep duration in infancy and risk of childhood overweight.

Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 162

, 305-311.