Abstract
The focus of this article is on sleep duration and sleep problems in infants and their association with body weight. A retrospective birth cohort of 519 infants was enrolled in a community-based study conducted in Changsha, China. Infant weight and other health-related information were collected during regular standard checkups at the Community Health Service Centers when infants were 1, 3, 6, 8, and 12 months old. The sleep duration and sleep problems of infants were assessed by maternal self-reports. Panel data model was used to evaluate the association of sleep duration and sleep problems with infant body weight. Significant relevance between self-reported sleep duration and weight of infants has been reported in the literature tested by the fixed effects model (p < 0.01). However, this study indicated that sleep problems of infants had no effect on their weight (p = 0.151), after adjusting feeding patterns and socioeconomic factors of their families. This paper argues that, as a potentially modifiable risk factor, infant sleep duration deserves more attention from their parents and families in order to prevent and control overweight or obesity in infants as well as reducing the incidence of obesity in adults.
Highlights
Childhood obesity has been one of the most serious public health challenges over the past decades [1]
Excess weight gain during infancy has a profound influence on children and adults, which is worthy of our attention
Previous studies have noted that infant feeding patterns have always been a known factor affecting infant weight, which is consistent with our results [33]
Summary
Childhood obesity has been one of the most serious public health challenges over the past decades [1]. This problem is affecting many low- and middle-income countries globally and steadily [2], in Asian countries [3]. Over 42 million children under the age of five, are threatened by obesity or overweight universally [4]. As well as their related risk factors, can be controlled and prevented. Prevention of infant obesity needs high priority
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