Is There a Link between Childrens Sleeping Patterns and Obesity - Assignment Example

Is there a link between children’s sleeping patterns and obesity in Australia? Student’s name Professor’s name Course title Date Introduction Sleep like diet and physical activity plays a significant role in maturation, growth, and health of adolescent and child. Deprivation of sleep is becoming predominant in both children and adults. A short duration of sleep is connected with glucose tolerance, decreased levels of leptin, insulin insensitivity but the high standard of hunger, ghrelin, and appetite (Spiegel, Leproult & Van Cauter, 1999). It is also linked with behaviors which promote obesity and weight gain involving lower vegetable and fruit consumption and lower physical activity. Research show that short duration of sleep supports risk of obesity (Taheri, 2006). Hence focusing on short duration of sleep may give the effective method of treating and preventing obesity. The habit of childhood sleep may contain a long-term impact on weight. Every one hour in sleep deprivation during childhood is associated with 50% risk of weight gain that would lead to obesity at 32. An increasing number of studies on obesity and sleep among children are available in the recent years. However, the range of age of the studies published is minimal with the age range of greater than five having few studies. From the recent systematic review, children of less than ten years show a negative relationship between obesity and sleep (Nevare & Rifas-Shiman et al, 2010. A birth cohort study of 32 years indicates that during childhood, short sleep was connected with the high risk of obesity in adults but at 32 years, sleep time was not related wit BMI in the adult. The research does not indicate clearly whether critical cut off in the relation between obesity and sleep in 10 years. Nevertheless, such information is significant to seek intervention from the high-risk group. The information on duration of sleep and obesity is limited among the Australian children. One research found that an association between obesity and short sleep was among boys only. However, it was not a recent research, and there was no modification of vegetable and fruit consumption and variables of socio-economic. Also, the decline in the duration of sleep was found for both boys and girls in another study (Van Cauter & Knutson , 2008). The obesity prevalence among children also raised at the same time. Thus, there is a need for updated research on the association between sleep and obesity in children. South Australian and Surveillance System also carried out the study to examine the connection between obesity and sleep duration among children of age 5-15. They also determined the link between activity and sleep and the impact of obesity (Taheri , Lin , Austin , Young & Mignot, 2004). They found out that there was a connection between obesity and short duration of sleep. Also, they discovered that there is the collaboration between physical activity and sleep in connection to obesity (Gillman & Rifas-Shiman et al, 2008). Another limitation of the research is that the studies cannot show conclusively how getting enough sleep in children lowers the risks of obesity despite suggesting that there is a connection between obesity and sleep (Magee, Iverson, Huang & Caputi, 2008). Thus, more clear answers may be obtained from randomized clinical trials which examine if increasing childhood or infant sleep lowers the obesity risk. Therefore, the paper explores the association between obesity and sleep duration in children in Australia. Research methods Sample selection and survey design For this study, data is collected utilizing the South Australian Monitoring and Surveillance (SAMSS). SAMSS is structured to monitor the related health problems, the trend of diseases, risk factors and other issues of health services systematically for all age in the health system in South Australian (Department of Health, 2002). A minimum of 600 people is selected each month randomly to be interviewed. All South Australian households with telephones linked and listed telephone number in the Electronic White Page are suitable for sample selection. A letter of survey introduction is sent to chosen family and the individual with last birthday is selected for an interview. Health interviewers are used to conducting the interviews. SAMSS employs the system of Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing to carry out the interview. The data are weighted by age, area, and gender and selection probability in the household to the most current data to make the result a representative of South Australian population. Therefore, the interview is conducted with parents with children of age 5 to 15 years. Children with duration of sleep between 4 and 14 are removed from the analysis. All the participants should give knowledgeable agreement. Data collection The data collected included, body mass index, sleep duration, vegetable and fruit consumption, physical inactivity and activity and demographic variables. Sleep duration is assessed by finding numbers of hours spent by the child in sleeping, and the length of sleeping was categorized as ≥10 hours, 9-10 hours and Read More