Sleep plays a vital role in promoting physi- cal health, longevity, and emotional well-being. It is most essential like other basic necessities of life such as eating, drinking, and breathing. A good night’s sleep may not just leave you feeling refreshed- it may also help to you be slim. According to researchers of New Zealand, children who get insufficient sleep at night are more likely to become overweight. By studying 244 children between the ages of three and seven, they proved it.
Experts of UK also found out the link between reduced sleep and ill health. They said more sleep was linked to a lower weight. The children were seen every six months when their weight, height and body fat were measured. Their sleeping habits and physical-activity levels were recorded at ages three, four and five. The researchers found that those children who had less sleep in their earlier years were at greater risk of having a higher body mass index at age seven. They sited reasons for the link which include simply having more time to eat and changes to hormones affecting appetite.
Dr Ian Maconochie, from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said, “Children under the age five generally have 11 hours sleep at night and in daytime. 20% of children at this age experience problems in sleeping, and that inadequate sleep has a significant impact on health, attention, memory, behaviour, and school performance.”
Researchers from Ohio’s Case Western Reserve University examining nearly 70,000 women for 16 years found that women who slept five or fewer hours at night were a third more likely to put on at least 15kg than sound sleepers during that time. They found that lighter sleepers were 15% more likely to become obese compared with women who slept for seven hours a night. A study by the US National Institute of Mental Health also produced that less sleep is one of the causes of obesity.
Hence, we all must sleep properly in order to maintain a healthy, perfect and slim figure.