Teens too low on sleep, activity, and too high on screen time
February 4, 2019
Science Daily/University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
Only 1 in 20 U.S. adolescents is meeting national recommendations for sleeping, physical activity, and screen time, according to new research.
The study, published today in JAMA Pediatrics, also revealed differences in the findings between females and males, with just 3 percent of girls reaching all three guideline targets, compared to 7 percent of boys.
"There is plenty of evidence to show how teenagers aren't getting enough physical activity, or sufficient sleep, or keeping their screen time in check. But this is the first time these three factors, which have a crucial bearing on a child's health, have been analyzed together among a nationally representative sample of U.S. adolescents," said first author Gregory Knell, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow at UTHealth School of Public Health in Dallas. "The results are a wake-up call for everyone who wants to make sure our children have a healthy future."
It is recommended by the National Sleep Foundation that children ages 14-18 sleep eight to 10 hours a night. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends at least an hour of moderate or vigorous physical activity daily, and limiting screen time to less than two hours.
The research involved nearly 60,000 American high school students, using data from the 2011-2017 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey.
"By far the most startling finding was how few adolescents across the board are meeting all three recommendations," Knell said. "I expected the percentage of adolescents meeting all three requirements concurrently to be low, but not this low.
The combined effect on children's overall health could be considerable in terms of their physical health, emotional well-being, and academic performance."
The study further examined other attributes of the child -- age, race or ethnicity, weight, and mental health -- and how these were linked to sleep, physical activity, and screen time.
Findings showed older teenagers, non-Hispanic black children, Asian children, those classified as obese, and those who showed signs of depression were the least likely to meet all recommendations when compared to their counterparts.
The paper calls for more research to better understand the relationship among sleep, physical activity, and screen time by exploring the effect these behaviors have on each other and their wider implications over time. It also urged doctors to ask patients about these behaviors, provide them and their parents with advice, and make any necessary specialist referrals.
"These findings are only scratching the surface and demonstrate a need to learn more about the role parenting style and home environment may play in increasing or curtailing these behaviors," Knell said. "Although the study confirms and further reveals how few children are leading optimal lifestyles, it also raises many questions about what can be done to reverse that trend and improve their health."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190204114643.htm
Children looking at screens in darkness before bedtime are at risk of poor sleep
January 29, 2019
Science Daily/University of Lincoln
Preteens who use a mobile phone or watch TV in the dark an hour before bed are at risk of not getting enough sleep compared to those who use these devices in a lit room or do not use them at all before bedtime.
The study by researchers from the University of Lincoln, Imperial College London, Birkbeck, University of London and the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute in Basel, Switzerland is the first to analyse the pre-sleep use of media devices with screens alongside the impact of room lighting conditions on sleep in pre-teens.
It found that night-time use of phones, tablets and laptops is consistently associated with poor sleep quality, insufficient sleep, and poor perceived quality of life. Insufficient sleep has also been shown to be associated with impaired immune responses, depression, anxiety and obesity in children and adolescents.
Data was collected from 6,616 adolescents aged between 11 and 12 and more than 70 per cent reported using at least one screen based device within one hour of their bedtime. They were asked to self-report a range of factors including their device use in both lit and darkened rooms, their weekday and weekend bedtimes, how difficult they found it to go to sleep and their wake up times.
The results showed that those who used a phone or watched television in a room with a light on were 31 per cent more likely to get less sleep than those who didn't use a screen. The likelihood increased to 147 per cent if the same activity took place in the dark.
It has been reported that globally, 90 per cent of adolescents are not sleeping the recommended nine to 11 hours per night, which has coincided with an increase in the use of screen-based media devices. In the UK alone, it is estimated that 98 per cent of 12 to 15 year olds watch television and over 90 per cent use mobile phones at home.
Previous studies have shown that sufficient sleep duration and quality are vital in childhood to maintain physical and mental development. Sleep is also crucial for cognitive processes and a lack of sufficient sleep has been directly related to poor academic performance.
Lead author, Dr Michael Mireku, a researcher at the University of Lincoln's School of Psychology said: "While previous research has shown a link between screen use and the quality and length of young people's sleep, ours is the first study to show how room lighting can further influence this.
"Our findings are significant not only for parents but for teachers, health professionals and adolescents themselves. We would recommend that these groups are made aware of the potential issues surrounding screen use during bedtime including insufficient sleep and poor sleep quality."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190129101904.htm
Children's sleep not significantly affected by screen time
November 5, 2018
Science Daily/University of Oxford
As young people spend an increasing amount of time on electronic devices, the effects of these digital activities has become a prevalent concern among parents, caregivers, and policy-makers. Research indicating that between 50 percent to 90 percent of school-age children might not be getting enough sleep has prompted calls that technology use may be to blame. However, new research has shown that screen time has very little practical effect on children's sleep.
Screens are now a fixture of modern childhood. And as young people spend an increasing amount of time on electronic devices, the effects of these digital activities has become a prevalent concern among parents, caregivers, and policy-makers. Research indicating that between 50% to 90% of school-age children might not be getting enough sleep has prompted calls that technology use may be to blame. However, the new research findings from the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford, has shown that screen time has very little practical effect on children's sleep.
The study was conducted using data from the United States' 2016 National Survey of Children's Health. Parents from across the country completed self-report surveys on themselves, their children and household.
"The findings suggest that the relationship between sleep and screen use in children is extremely modest," says Professor Andrew Przybylski, author of the study published in the Journal of Pediatrics. "Every hour of screen time was related to 3 to 8 fewer minutes of sleep a night."
In practical terms, while the correlation between screen time and sleep in children exists, it might be too small to make a significant difference to a child's sleep. For example, when you compare the average nightly sleep of a tech-abstaining teenager (at 8 hours, 51 minutes) with a teenager who devotes 8 hours a day to screens (at 8 hours, 21 minutes), the difference is overall inconsequential. Other known factors, such as early starts to the school day, have a larger effect on childhood sleep.
"This suggests we need to look at other variables when it comes to children and their sleep," says Przybylski. Analysis in the study indicated that variables within the family and household were significantly associated with both screen use and sleep outcomes. "Focusing on bedtime routines and regular patterns of sleep, such as consistent wake-up times, are much more effective strategies for helping young people sleep than thinking screens themselves play a significant role."
The aim of this study was to provide parents and practitioners with a realistic foundation for looking at screen versus the impact of other interventions on sleep. "While a relationship between screens and sleep is there, we need to look at research from the lens of what is practically significant," says Przybylski. "Because the effects of screens are so modest, it is possible that many studies with smaller sample sizes could be false positives -- results that support an effect that in reality does not exist."
"The next step from here is research on the precise mechanisms that link digital screens to sleep. Though technologies and tools relating to so-called 'blue light' have been implicated in sleep problems, it is not clear whether play a significant causal role," says Przybylski. "Screens are here to stay, so transparent, reproducible, and robust research is needed to figure out how tech effects us and how we best intervene to limit its negative effects."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181105132939.htm