4.5 Review

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

Journal

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OBESITY
Volume 46, Issue 8, Pages 1502-1509

Publisher

SPRINGERNATURE
DOI: 10.1038/s41366-022-01140-0

Keywords

-

Funding

  1. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences [R01ES016772, P30ES011961, R21ES014947, P01ES022831, R24ES028531]
  2. US Environmental Protection Agency [RD-83543701]
  3. Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [R01HD084487]
  4. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases [R01DK085173]
  5. Duke Cancer Institute
  6. Intramural Research Program of the NIH, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
  7. National Cancer Institute [T32CA093423]
  8. National Institute of General Medical Sciences [2K12GM093857-10]

Ask authors/readers for more resources

The study found a consistent association between sleep duration and adiposity measures in children, suggesting that pediatric sleep interventions should focus on increasing nighttime sleep duration and examining if this improves child adiposity outcomes.
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 (beta = -0.29, p < 0.001), waist circumference (beta = -0.31, p < 0.001), and WHtR (beta = -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 (beta = -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.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.5
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available