Mike Colasurdo home schools his two boys. He says it’s very important as a parent to know they are healthy mentally and physically. He says they get about 10 hours of sleep each night.
"You notice if their sleep schedules have changed their mornings are a lot harder. We have meltdowns and that type of thing.
A new study out in the Journal Pediatrics suggests that children who don't get enough sleep, at least nine hours a night, will be heavier. The study was done on third graders and showed for each hour of sleep they got a night they were forty percent less likely to be overweight by the time they were in the sixth grade. It also found that it didn't matter how much the child weighed in the fifth grade, if they didn't get enough sleep in the third grade they were more likely to be overweight in the sixth grade.
For Colasurdo, the findings are surprising.
"You think more about what types of food they are eating, overeating or how much food they are eating you really don't think about sleep tied to it that strongly."
The reason is when children don't get enough sleep it disrupts hormones that an affect on their metabolism.
Now this dad says, he'll look at his boy’s bedtime in a whole new light. The researchers say third graders should be getting about nine hours and forty-five minutes of sleep a night.
The study also shows that sixth grader who didn't get a full nights sleep were more likely to be overweight.
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