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New studies show a direct connection between obesity and insufficient sleep. Children with inadequate nightly rest are at higher risk for obesity than those who are getting the proper amount of sleep. If a child has likelihood to be obese, proper sleep will help protect him or her against future risk.
For one week, a study in Louisville, KY gave 308 children, ages ranging from 4 to 10 years old, a bracelet to monitor their sleep. Results found that that the children with the least amount of sleep were 4.2 times more likely to have obesity.
Moreover Dr. Phyllis C. Zee, the director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Northwestern Memorial Hospital reports:
"There is growing evidence for a link between sleep duration and childhood obesity… [P]erhaps even more important than sleep duration is the effect of day to day variability of sleep wake timing on weight regulation."