Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Aug;46(8):1502-1509.
doi: 10.1038/s41366-022-01140-0. Epub 2022 May 12.

Sleep onset, duration, or regularity: which matters most for child adiposity outcomes?

Trevin E Glasgow  1 , Elizabeth L Adams  2 , Albert Ksinan  3 , D Jeremy Barsell  1 , Jessica Lunsford-Avery  4 , Shanshan Chen  5 , Scott Kollins  6 , Julia C Schechter  4 , Rachel Maguire  7   8 , Matthew Engelhard  9 , Bernard F Fuemmeler  10
Affiliations
Review

Sleep onset, duration, or regularity: which matters most for child adiposity outcomes?

Trevin E Glasgow et al. Int J Obes (Lond). 2022 Aug.

Abstract

Background/objectives: Sleep measures, such as duration and onset timing, are associated with adiposity outcomes among children. Recent research among adults has considered variability in sleep and wake onset times, with the Sleep Regularity Index (SRI) as a comprehensive metric to measure shifts in sleep and wake onset times between days. However, little research has examined regularity and adiposity outcomes among children. This study examined the associations of three sleep measures (i.e., sleep duration, sleep onset time, and SRI) with three measures of adiposity (i.e., body mass index [BMI], waist circumference, and waist-to-height ratio [WHtR]) in a pediatric sample.

Subjects/methods: Children (ages 4-13 years) who were part of the U.S. Newborn Epigenetic STudy (NEST) participated. Children (N = 144) wore an ActiGraph for 1 week. Sleep measures were estimated from actigraphy data. Weight, height, and waist circumference were measured by trained researchers. BMI and WHtR was calculated with the objectively measured waist and height values. Multiple linear regression models examined associations between child sleep and adiposity outcomes, controlling for race/ethnicity, child sex, age, mothers' BMI and sleep duration.

Results: When considering sleep onset timing and duration, along with demographic covariates, sleep onset timing was not significantly associated with any of the three adiposity measures, but a longer duration was significantly associated with a lower BMI Z-score (β = -0.29, p < 0.001), waist circumference (β = -0.31, p < 0.001), and WHtR (β = -0.38, p < 0.001). When considering SRI and duration, duration remained significantly associated with the adiposity measures. The SRI and adiposity associations were in the expected direction, but were non-significant, except the SRI and WHtR association (β = -0.16, p = 0.077) was marginally non-significant.

Conclusions: Sleep duration was consistently associated with adiposity measures in children 4-13 years of age. Pediatric sleep interventions should focus first on elongating nighttime sleep duration, and examine if this improves child adiposity outcomes.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Flow diagram describing the cohort for analyses
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Morrissey B, Taveras E, Allender S, Strugnell C. Sleep and obesity among children: a systematic review of multiple sleep dimensions. Pediatr Obes. 2020;15(4):e12619. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Miller MA, Bates S, Ji C, Cappuccio FP. Systematic review and meta-analyses of the relationship between short sleep and incidence of obesity and effectiveness of sleep interventions on weight gain in preschool children. Obes Rev. 2021;22(2):e13113. - PubMed
    1. Ash T, Taveras EM. Associations of short sleep duration with childhood obesity and weight gain: summary of a presentation to the National Academy of Science’s Roundtable on Obesity Solutions. Sleep Health. 2017. Oct;3(5):389–92. - PubMed
    1. Fatima Y, Doi S a. R, Mamun AA. Longitudinal impact of sleep on overweight and obesity in children and adolescents: a systematic review and bias-adjusted meta-analysis. Obes Rev. 2015;16(2):137–49. - PubMed
    1. Ruan H, Xun P, Cai W, He K, Tang Q. Habitual sleep duration and risk of childhood obesity: systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies. Sci Rep. 2015. Dec;5(1):16160. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types