Relationship between sleep duration and dietary intake in 4- to 14-year-old Danish children

Camilla Hoppe, Berit Worm Rothausen, Anja Biltoft-Jensen, Jeppe Matthiessen, Margit Velsing Groth, Jean-Philippe Chaput, Inge Tetens

9 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

A negative association between sleep duration and BMI has been observed in children. However, knowledge about the association between sleep duration and diet is limited. The objective was to examine the association between sleep duration and intake of foods and nutrients in children. In the present cross-sectional study, dietary intake and sleep duration were recorded by the parents for seven consecutive days in a food and sleep record in a representative sample of 802 4- to 14-year-old children. No sex differences were found regarding age and sleep duration. Sleep duration was negatively correlated to age (ρ = -0·68; P < 0·001) and BMI (ρ = -0·41; P < 0·001). In multiple linear regression analyses, sleep duration was not associated with energy intake (b = -0·015; P = 0·20), but there was a trend towards a positive association with intake of dietary fibre (b = 0·006; P = 0·05) and vegetables (b = 0·011; P = 0·05), and a negative association with intake of poultry (b = -0·002; P = 0·02), and a trend towards a negative association with intake of liquid 'discretionary calories' (b = -0·01; P = 0·05). Furthermore, in a comparison of dietary intake between age-dependent tertiles of sleep duration, only intake of liquid 'discretionary calories' was significantly lower in long sleepers than in short and medium sleepers (P = 0·03). In conclusion, sleep duration was not associated with energy intake and the proposal that children with short sleep duration have less healthy eating habits than children with longer sleep duration was only weakly supported by the present findings.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere38
JournalJournal of Nutritional Science
Volume2
Number of pages7
ISSN2048-6790
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2013
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Diet
  • Obesity
  • Sleep
  • Children
  • Adolescents
  • Denmark

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