Can’t afford to stay up late, can’t lose weight?

"You can't wake up when you sleep in spring. You can hear the singing of birds everywhere. You can hear the sound of wind and rain at night, and you can tell how many flowers have fallen."

"Spring is sleepy, autumn is tired, summer takes a nap, and winter is March when I can't wake up."

For a long time, everyone's impression of Pang Dun is that he lives a sloppy life and is lazy in food and work. For chubby people, "eating less and moving more" seems to be an effective way to control their weight.

There is another saying: Behind every fat person there is a selfish, lazy and greedy soul.

Going to bed when you are full and eating after you wake up seems to be a shortcut to "building fat".

Some people even think that most fat people sleep well and like to sleep in.

From the above, it can be seen that the correct way to correct obesity is to let fat people get up earlier and sleep less.

This is not the case. Obesity is the result of a combination of factors. Eating more and moving less is certainly one of the main reasons. But in recent years, it has been discovered that sleep is closely related to obesity, and reasonable sleep is very good for obesity!

The current sleep status of children in my country

A study with a sample size of 30,250 carried out in 9 provinces in my country found that children's sleep deprivation becomes more prominent after entering school age, and becomes more and more obvious with age. The average daily sleep time of children in my country is between primary school students, junior high school students and high school students. The order is 9.2, 8.1 and 7.1 hours. More than 70% of primary and secondary school students suffer from insufficient sleep, and there is a downward trend with age.

At present, school-age children in my country often cannot get enough sleep due to academic pressure and family environment, and there is a general tendency to have insufficient sleep time at night. And as age increases, sleep time tends to decrease.

The role of sleep in children’s physiological health and physical development cannot be ignored. During sleep, the human body not only gets adequate rest and regulates immune function, but also a variety of hormones related to the body's normal physiological metabolism are secreted during sleep.

As school-age children’s academic pressure increases and poor study habits lead to poor sleep habits, reduced sleep quality, and shortened sleep time, this leads to hormone secretion disorders related to children’s physiological metabolism and growth and development, which also aggravates the occurrence and development of childhood obesity. one of the important factors in development. In recent years, many studies have shown that both short and long sleep time in children are related to the occurrence of overweight and obesity.

If you don’t get enough sleep, you will gain weight.

The role of sleep in children’s physical development cannot be ignored. Although the subjects of previous studies are different and the definition standards of sleep time are different, so far, all systematic reviews and large-sample clinical studies have concluded that sleep duration is related to children's body size, and there is a dose-effect relationship.

Meta-analysis and domestic and foreign clinical studies all support that short sleep time is a risk factor for overweight and obesity, and reduced sleep time is related to an increase in body mass index or other obesity indicators. Lack of sleep may cause changes in eating behavior and reduction in energy consumption, ultimately leading to energy imbalance and obesity, which may be related to changes in appetite-related hormone levels [2-4].

Moreover, some studies have found that there are some gender differences between men and women: insufficient sleep is a risk factor for overweight and obesity in boys, but there is no similar finding in girls [5-6]. This suggests that boys are at greater risk of becoming overweight and obese than girls when they are sleep deprived, but the reasons for this difference require further study.

The more you sleep, the more fat you get

Insufficient sleep time increases the risk of overweight and obesity in children, and some studies have also found that excessive sleep time also increases the risk of overweight and obesity in children.

A study on adolescents in my country suggested that there is a U-shaped relationship between sleep time and overweight/obesity in children. With sleep 7-9 hours as a reference, sleep <5 hours, 5-7 hours, and more than 9 hours are (OR =1.26, 95% CI: 1.05~1.51), (OR=1.06, 95% CI: 1.00~1.11), (OR=1.27, 95% CI: 1.14~1.42), this result indicates that the sleep time is too short or too long Length is a risk factor for overweight and obesity [2].

The mechanism of proper sleep to prevent obesity

Sleep plays an important role in energy balance. When sleep time is reduced, it is easy to lead to fatigue and daytime drowsiness, which reduces the amount of activity during the day. The reduction in physical activity during the day will in turn lead to a decrease in sleep quality, entering a vicious cycle. Reduced activity is an important factor in childhood obesity.

Reduced sleep alters levels of leptin, ghrelin, insulin, cortisol, interleukin-6, and growth hormone. Changes in these hormones or factors can cause sympathetic nerve excitement in the brain, increase eating, and further aggravate obesity symptoms.

The 2019 Beijing Children and Adolescents Metabolic Syndrome Cohort Study found that compared with longer sleep time, the impact of shorter sleep time on childhood obesity is related to the modification of the leptin pathway. Adequate sleep duration during childhood is important for early prevention of obesity, especially for those with a genetic predisposition [4].

How much sleep is appropriate?

Throughout a person's life cycle, different age groups require different amounts of sleep, and children of different ages also have different appropriate sleep times. The Chinese Nutrition Society has made recommendations on children’s sleep time: to ensure adequate sleep time, primary school students should get 10 hours a day, junior high school students should get 9 hours, and high school students should get 8 hours. In 2020, six departments including the National Health Commission and the Ministry of Education jointly issued the "Implementation Plan for the Prevention and Control of Obesity in Children and Adolescents" which recommended that children and adolescents should be guaranteed sleep time.

I can’t afford to stay up late, I can’t lose weight. It's not just talk, it's true.

Too long or too short sleep is a risk factor for childhood obesity. We should start from society, family, school and other aspects to strengthen health education and guidance, publicize the importance of sleep, change children's bad living habits, and ensure adequate sleep to prevent and treat it. The onset and progression of obesity.