American children are getting enough sleep these days, according to a new study.
The news comes as a relief, since previous studies have shown a series of health risks associated with insufficient sleep. Jessica Williams and her colleagues found children in the country meeting the hours of sleep recommended by experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Reuters Health reported.
"We can't say this is the amount that they should be sleeping," Williams, the lead author of the study and a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, told Reuters Health. "All we could really do is compare our estimated norms with what is recommended, and it seems like it falls pretty well in line with the recommendations."
To examine the sleep duration of children from birth to 18 years, researchers used details from a survey that followed families for years. The study that included nearly 3,000 participants in 1997, came down to 1,424 children by 2007. Surprisingly, the researchers noted sleeping hours coming down as these children grew older. Until two years of age the children had between 12 and 14 hours sleep, by the age of 10, it dropped down to 10 hours.
However, investigators found children getting enough sleep during different ages as recommended by experts from CDC. The findings of the study have been published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
Previous studies have found the importance of quality sleep in keeping children fit and fine. In a study published in the October issue of the journal SLEEP, researchers found lack of sleep leading to high levels of insulin resistance in adolescents, increasing the risks of developing diabetes.
Another study published in the November issue of Pediatrics found poor sleep leading to behavioral problems in children. Previous studies have also linked poor sleep to heart diseases and academic problems.
