Sleep duration and overweight: is there a relationship in adolescence?

This study aimed to investigate the association between sleep duration and excess weight in Brazilian adolescents.

This is a cross-sectional study conducted with 65,837 adolescents, aged 12 to 17 years, enrolled in the Study of Cardiovascular Risks in Adolescents (ERICA). Sleep duration was assessed by means of a questionnaire focusing on weekday and weekend hours of sleep. Nutritional status was assessed based on body mass index, and participants were classified according to age and gender. The statistical analysis was performed with the Stata 13 software, using the survey command. Poisson regression was used to determine the association of excess weight with sleep duration categories.

A decline in sleep duration was associated with advancing age. The prevalence of short and long-term sleep among adolescents was 17.9 and 3.6%, respectively, while overweight was diagnosed in 25.5% of the sample. Adolescents who reported having short sleep had 10% (PR = 1.10; 95%CI 1.06 - 1.15) more overweight, while those who reported sleeping more than 11 hours had approximately 12% (PR = 0.88; 95%CI 0.78 - 0.99) less excess weight.

Our findings reinforce the assumption that insufficient sleep poses health risks, and encouraging regular and sufficient sleep may be a cost-effective intervention for the prevention of overweight in adolescence.