Weekday time in bed and obesity risk in adolescence

Yngvild Sørebø Danielsen; Ståle Pallesen; Børge Sivertsen; Kjell Morten Stormark; Mari Hysing

doi:10.1002/osp4.455

Weekday time in bed and obesity risk in adolescence

Obes Sci Pract. 2020 Sep 21;7(1):45-52. doi: 10.1002/osp4.455. eCollection 2021 Feb.

Authors

Yngvild Sørebø Danielsen¹, Ståle Pallesen^{2

3}, Børge Sivertsen^{4

5

6}, Kjell Morten Stormark^{7

8}, Mari Hysing^{2

7}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Clinical Psychology University of Bergen Bergen Norway.
² Department of Psychosocial Science University of Bergen Bergen Norway.
³ Norwegian Competence Center for Sleep Disorders Bergen Norway.
⁴ Department of Health Promotion Norwegian Institute of Public Health Bergen Norway.
⁵ Department of Research & Innovation Helse Fonna HF Haugesund Norway.
⁶ Department of Mental Health Norwegian University of Science and Technology Trondheim Norway.
⁷ Regional Centre for Child and Youth Mental Health and Child Welfare NORCE Norwegian Research Centre Bergen Norway.
⁸ Department of Health Promotion and Development University of Bergen Bergen Norway.

Abstract

Introduction: Sleep curtailment is associated with obesity in children, but few studies have investigated this relationship in a longitudinal sample of adolescents. The aim of the present study was to examine the longitudinal association between weekday time in bed (TIB) at age 10-13 and overweight at age 16-19.

Methods: Adolescents and their parents (N = 3025 families), participating in a longitudinal population-based study, completed questionnaires assessing habitual bedtime and wake time on weekdays, weight and height, socioeconomic status (SES), internalizing mental health problems and disturbed eating. Two surveys were administered with a 6-year interval (T1 and T2). A one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was performed examining the association between TIB and weight category 6 years later, with SES, internalizing problems and disturbed eating at baseline entered as covariates. Hierarchical and logistic regression analyses were used to assess TIB at age 10-13 years to as a predictor of body mass index (BMI) standardized deviation scores (SDS) and overweight status at age 16-19 adjusting for the same confounders and baseline BMI.

Results: A linear inverse relationship between TIB at age 10-13 and BMI category at age 16-19 was demonstrated by the ANCOVA, p < 0.001. Shorter TIB was related to higher weight, but the effect size was small (partial eta squared = 0.01). When adjusting for the included baseline confounders in the hierarchical regression model TIB significantly predicted later BMI SDS (β = -0.039, p = 0.02). The adjusted logistic regression model showed that for each hour reduction of TIB at T1 the odds of being overweight/obese at T2 increased with a factor of 1.6.

Conclusion: Shorter TIB was found to be a significant, yet modest, independent predictor of later weight gain in adolescence. The findings implicate that establishing healthy sleep habits should be addressed in prevention and treatment strategies for adolescent obesity.

Keywords: BMI; adolescent; longitudinal; obesity; sleep duration.