Wellness/Prevention: Sleep Well

Increasing the number of hours adolescents sleep each night may reduce the prevalence of adolescent obesity. A recent study shows that fewer hours of sleep is associated with greater increases in adolescent body mass index (BMI) for participants between 14 and 18 years old. Increasing sleep from 8 to 10 hours per day at age 18 could result in a 4% reduction in the number of adolescents with a BMI above 25. This would translate to 500,000 fewer overweight adolescents.
Pediatrics, April 2013