A regular lack of sleep can cause a variety of health problems in children, the report warned.
The amount of screen time and length of time spent sleeping can both be used to predict excessive weight gain in children and should be considered for informing anti-obesity measures, new research has found.
Researchers examined links between the amount of time children aged between two and 11-years old spent using electronic devices such as tablets, playing video games or watching TV, and the duration of their sleep and their weight.
At the beginning of the study they found that a decrease in screen time tended to be met with an increase in sleep duration and vice versa, with the 3,734 children who were not overweight or obese 16 per cent more likely to become so throughout the report’s duration.
Every lost hour of sleep was associated with a 23 per cent increased risk of becoming overweight ,according to the annual European and International Congress on Obesity.
While the association between screen time and being overweight became less statistically relevant when external factors including sex, age, region of Europe and parental levels of education were taken into account, sleep duration remained a significant predictor of being overweight.
“Sleep is an often undervalued but important part of children’s development, with a regular lack of sleep causing a variety of health problems,” said lead author Dr Viveka Guzman from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.
“Our findings suggest that sleep duration plays a role in the link between screen time and overweight, but more research is needed to understand the mechanism underlying this relationship.”
Unknown effects of screen time
Many recent studies suggest parents and teachers should limit the amount of screen time, or time using and interacting with electronic devices that children are exposed to, to under two hours a day, something which is likely to be difficult to monitor as younger children become more confident using technology.
A recent study suggested that babies who spent greater amounts of time exposed to tablets and TV screens have a higher risk of developing greater ASD(autism spectrum disorder) like symptoms later in childhood.
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