Study: Night owl girls more likely to gain weight

Improving sleep schedules may be helpful in preventing childhood and adolescent obesity, especially in girls. US researchers who studied children's waist size and calculated the proportion of fat in their body, have concluded that teenage girls who sleep later are more likely to gain weight, compared to those of the same age who go to bed earlier. The research, published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, looked at the sleep habits of 804 volunteering adolescents - 418 girls and 386 boys - between the ages 11 and 16.

The participants responded to questionnaires about their sleep patterns and wore a wrist device that tracked movement, the study noted. The team of researchers at the Kaiser Permanente also calculated the difference between the children's weeknight and weekend bedtimes - also called the social jet lag. Children who stayed up far later on weekends than weeknights were considered to have high social jet lag.

Previous studies had found that adults who preferred to stay up late, and had high social jet lag were more likely to gain weight than those who went to be earlier and did not have social jet lag, the study noted. When the researchers conducted the current study to determine if the same findings would apply to young people, they found that girls, staying up later was associated with an increase in waist size by an average of 0.58 centimetre (cm), and a 0.16 kilogramme (kg) per square metre increase in body fat.

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