Faculty

Rachael Waring Taylor

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Eat, sleep, move – the roles in childhood obesity prevention

Eat, move, sleep, repeat – the role of each behaviour in obesity prevention in children.

Diet and physical activity have long been the cornerstones of weight management across all age groups. However, while these behaviours are clearly critical for good health, maintaining changes longterm is notoriously difficult. Our relative inability to both prevent and manage child obesity around the world indicates that alternative approaches should therefore be investigated. Sleep may offer one such approach. Not receiving sufficient good quality sleep has been consistently related to an increased risk of obesity in children in a wide range of observational studies. However, the mechanisms underlying short sleep leading to weight gain are not clear. Nor have many intervention trials determined the effectiveness of sleep manipulation as a good obesity prevention tool. Current observational evidence would suggest that short sleep is related more to increased energy intake or poorer dietary choices,
than changes in energy expenditure behaviours, but good quality data, including experimental trials are lacking. This talk will cover the role of sleep in effective weight management in children, what we know, what we don’t know, and suggestions for future research.

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