The association between sleep duration and childhood obesity in China : a systematic review

Abstract

Objective: Obesity has become one of the major global public epidemic problems while the knowledge of childhood obesity is a bit limited within Chinese study. This review examined the association between sleep duration and childhood overweight and obesity in China.

Methods: This systematic review was conducted by searching online electronic resources of papers from PubMed and Chinese database CNKI published up to 2013. The keywords of “sleep” OR “risk factors” AND “obesity OR overweight” AND “child OR adolescent” AND “China OR Hong Kong OR Taiwan” were used for searching and identifying. The search filter to restrict the study design as the observational study written in English or Chinese in these databases was used.

Results: Four case-control studies, and eight cross-sectional studies were included in the systematic review. Despite of different method in assessing sleep duration, all included studies suggested that sleep duration is consistently and negatively related with childhood obesity, mainly assessed using Body Mass Index (BMI) in China.

Conclusion: Most included articles reported the association between short sleep duration and childhood obesity/overweight. However, given the cross-section nature of the data, the causal relation between sleep duration and obesity remains unclear. Whether sleep duration may be the factor to be considered in childhood obesity prevention strategies remains to be confirmed possibly by studies with longitudinal design or randomized control trials.