More sleep or more exercise: the best time trade-offs for children’s health

https://www.unisa.edu.au/Media-Centre/Releases/2021/more-sleep-or-more-exercise--the-best-time-trade-offs-for-childrens-health/

by giuliomagnifico • 5 years ago

60 82 5 years ago

unisa.edu.au

recursivedoubts2• 5 years ago

Dragging growing kids out of bed at 6:30 in the morning day after day is insane, and I have to think it is driven by adult work needs (and ultimately by employers) rather than by any rational consideration of the children's interests.

vmchale• 5 years ago

Where I grew up they staggered schedules for middle school/elementary school/high school so that the buses would be busy all day. So high school started early.

finnh• 5 years ago

They are switching that in many districts nowadays, to recognize that young kids wake up early naturally while teens need to sleep in.

IG_Semmelweiss2• 5 years ago

You are correct.

There is tremendous value in open door daycare policies. Some kids arrive 730 because thats their parents schedule. Others at 10 because little sam decides to sleep in.

Its unfortunate that the assembly-line aspect of post-K schooling forces kids to fixed times which are often at odds with the children or even parent's needs

hrktb• 5 years ago

This is the interesting takeaway from the current situation: lockdown exceptions directly reflect priorities, and while teachers and parents were crying bloody murder the school stayed open to allow people to go to work.

kaesar14• 5 years ago

The amount of over-30s who will defend this on town Facebook groups by saying it's what they did and turned out fine is terrible. I get to sleep in and wake up for my intellectually demanding job whenever I want and I feel how much more I'm able to deliver because of it. It makes me sad to think about how much learning I missed out on as a 16 year old because I would be falling asleep in class so often.

toomuchtodo• 5 years ago

It's up to today's parents to provide a better environment for their children, regardless of popular sentiment.

pgt• 5 years ago

People say, "My parents beat me and I beat my kids and I turned out just fine!" I think, 'did you hear what you just said?'

Whenever I hear, "turned out fine" it prompts me to look closer.

spaceisballer• 5 years ago

It is totally the worst thing. My kids never really adapted to it and a lot was driven by our commute. Funny thing is a year in and they still manage to wake up at 6:30-7am without alarms or waking them up. Granted they go to bed by 9pm so it’s at least 9-10hours of sleep a day.

TaupeRanger2• 5 years ago

The advantages of living close to one's place of work or education cannot be overstated.

doggodaddo782• 5 years ago

I had to wake up at 4:45 am for school every morning (and I had and have sleep apnea) because the bus ride across town to the "magnet" school (Trace, which burned down and was rebuilt) took 90 minutes each way. (3 hours of useless travel as the bus made what seemed a hundred stops, almost like a Hilbert curve.) I was not allowed to go to the school a block away (the original Allen Elementary before it moved into Steinbeck Middle School), within walking distance, only because I was white. That's how "desegregation" worked at the SJUSD in the mid-80's and late-90's.

Also, there were a group of girls on the bus who harassed me by repeatedly exposing their privates towards me with impunity. It didn't matter if I ignored them, it happened for at least 2 years.

doggodaddo782• 5 years ago

In fairness, there was another incident where two 5th grade girls (9-10) at the same school tried dragging me into the bushes on the east side of the building out-of-view when I was in the 4th grade (8). Unfortunately for them, there was a space around each bush and the building, so it was easy to slip out next to the building. At the time, I didn't understand what they were doing, so it wasn't that traumatic.

The "magnet" schools seemed to group poor and dysfunctional kids together and then try to sprinkle middle-class and gifted kids involuntarily under a social experiment that they'll make the other kids "better" by osmosis. The promise of the "magnet" school was they were supposed to do something extra and get more money, but I think they were a magnet for concentrating problems. My guess is there was a lot of child abuse occurring against girls in the low income areas and at magnet schools, so some of them were experiencing precocious puberty and acting-out.

Oddly enough, I was never in a fight with other boys anytime in school, probably because I dwarfed everyone else. Or maybe we were all too tired to care?

Also interesting was by high school, which started later, I was able to awaken at the same minute (7:58 am) every day. By then, I bicycled 3.8 miles / 6.1 km twice a day to school; a school with a parking lot full of students' Mercedes and BMWs while the teachers were making peanuts.

silicon2401• 5 years ago

How does that compare to historical routines? Did teenagers and other school-age kids ever get to sleep in? I have a hard time imagining kids old enough to help with family work being allowed to sleep in until noon.

5cents• 5 years ago

Maybe they helped at night when their parents were sleeping?

MattGaiser• 5 years ago

Is the 10K years or so that we have been farming enough to change our prior patterns of need?

shakna• 5 years ago

Historical routines are hard to compare against - because they weren't a day/night cycle like we have now. [0]

A lot of kids may have been asleep at noon, like the Spanish siesta, equally, kids may have been involved in the midnight harvest, or caring for the fire.

Things tended towards more of several smaller sleeping periods spread out over the entire day, and periods of activity at times that might feel strange now.

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16964783

musingsole• 5 years ago

Yeah, nail on the head here. I'm pretty sure school schedules are more of an inheritance from the old world than they are a plan to free up parents for more labor. In the old world, school had to be fitted around a kid's work day, not their parents.

watwut5• 5 years ago

No, they were expected to wake up soon along with everybody.

65102• 5 years ago

Just what I was thinking. Is the goal education or some kind of storage facility? I read there is a 25% drop in performance if one doesn't sleep properly the month before a test.

BitwiseFool• 5 years ago

It's supposed to be about education, of course, but there is also a massively practical element of keeping young and impulsive people busy and contained during the day.

bosie• 5 years ago

Both? I am not sure what your suggestion is for a 7 year old when both parents start work at 8am

rhino3692• 5 years ago

It’s fine as long as you putting them to bed early too.

Sleeping 8pm to 6:30am is enough. But you have to put them to bed by then.

astura2• 5 years ago

Yep, my bedtime was 8pm growing up, until middle school, then it was 9pm. 15-16 was when I stopped having a bedtime. I absolutely hated it at the time, especially in the summer because it would still be light out when I went to bed, and I never felt like I never ever felt like tired or like I needed to go to sleep at "bedtime".

In retrospect I'm glad I always had a full night's sleep, because I wouldn't have if left to my own devices.

Nowadays parents keep their kids up all hours of the night, I really don't get it. I see elementary aged kids out and about (in public) 9, 10, even 11pm.

alistairSH4• 5 years ago

That's not necessarily true - it's age dependent. Adolescents/teenagers are "hardwired" to stay up later[1] and sleep in later (relative to adults or younger children).

1 - https://www.nationwidechildrens.org/specialties/sleep-disord...

voisin• 5 years ago

This is an overly simplistic take. Everyone has different natural circadian rhythms and not everyone is tired enough to fall asleep at 8pm.

recursivedoubts2• 5 years ago

My children all go to bed at 8:30 PM and only one of them naturally wakes up before 7AM.

blodkorv2• 5 years ago

Sure if humans where robots that have an push to sleep button directly when you get to bed.

phepranto• 5 years ago

Then they're home at 4pm and get a whole 4 hours for homework, recreational activities and relaxing.

3np• 5 years ago

And at the same time, many employers motivate an early start of the workday with accommodating for parents

fullstop• 5 years ago

My kids opted to be 100% virtual and asynchronous for their schooling this year. This means that they do not need to be up at a given hour and that they can get ahead in their classes if they have the opportunity. This has its pros and cons, as it takes willpower to stay focused on their school work. It's also forcing them to essentially teach themselves, which I find to be an excellent skill to have.

The best part of this is not having to get up very early. My oldest was picked up by the bus at 6:07 AM every day. Now she wakes up more naturally and it's been a fantastic change. She can get more rest, if needed, when she has her monthly, which isn't something she would be able to normally do.

minikites2• 5 years ago

And it's never going to get fixed, because this is the USA and placing any restrictions on how employers treat employees is evil socialism.

llampx• 5 years ago

Germany is the same, even though it is more socialist-inspired.

gambiting• 5 years ago

I mean, from age 12-18 my school started at 7:30. Which meant I had to get on the bus at 6:45 to make it on time. Which meant I had to get up at 6am. I was actually getting up earlier for school than my dad for work for a while, lol.

And no, it wasn't some ancient history either.

intergalplan• 5 years ago

I've never had to (consistently) get up for a job as early as I did for high school. And that's despite a 5-minute commute for high school, versus at times a 40-minute (one way) commute for work.

Actually, in general, high school was the most demanding part of my life, so far as long stretches of time go (sure, I've had the odd week or month that's worse). And I was a pretty bad slacker about things like homework (given the time demands even with that lax attitude, I think I'd have gone actually-crazy otherwise).

Middle-aged now. Nothing's been as rough as high school, or even close. And I had it pretty easy (no significant bullying issues or anything like that, stable home life)

fatnoah• 5 years ago

I had a similar story. My day in High School was from 7:28 AM to 2:08pm. Getting up to go to school wasn't a huge deal for me, but I did love having so much time after school to play a sport, hang with friends, etc. and still have plenty of time to get my (way less than kids seem to get nowadays) homework done.

I'm conflicted on this, mostly because that after school time was very valuable to me, much more than being able to sleep in a little more. This was extra true in the winter, when the sun set by 5pm. I also recognize that not everyone to be as easily up and awake that early in the day.

ianbooker• 5 years ago

From the abstract of the study: "A 0.1 standardized decrease in adiposity was associated with either 52 minutes more sleep, 56 minutes less sedentary time, 65 minutes less light physical activity, or 17 minutes more MVPA."

With MVPA being "extra exercise".

Interesting, how light activity is negatively associated. For adults its often suggested otherwise..

shureluck• 5 years ago

I love how the majority of modern science articles are people basically proving common sense.

dalbasal3• 5 years ago

That kids can lose weight by sleeping?

aantix• 5 years ago

Strangely, everytime I've gotten into a consistent habit of going to bed at 9pm, I've lost some weight.

I prefer staying up late, really late, like 3am. But along with the shorter sleep comes late night eating and probably a less efficient body function overall.

smiley1437• 5 years ago

That's probably the most surprising bit - that sleeping an extra 52 minutes is equivalent to NOT sitting for an extra 56 minutes (in reducing your BMI by 7.4%)

So -- if you're sitting down, you are better off going all the way to sleep?? That is definitely not intuitive! Or is that only for extending the 'full night' of sleep?

I suppose if you are sitting and awake, you can still eat food, whereas when you're asleep you are probably not eating.

noptd• 5 years ago

That's intuitive from a population-based standpoint. The more time spent sleeping, the less time kids have to eat or snack which lowers their daily caloric intake.

timw0j• 5 years ago

My wife and I maintain that fixed bed times are still one of the best parenting decisions we ever made. They're getting a little later as our kids get older, but we can definitely tell when the kids haven't gotten enough sleep. They get squirrely and overly giddy, and their ability to focus on anything goes way down.

fastball• 5 years ago

Fixed bedtimes works until your kids realize they don't actually need to go to bed when you want them to.

koolba• 5 years ago

Ah, that's the classic Mike Tyson words of wisdom, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth".

blodkorv2• 5 years ago

they work if they naturally feel tired when you think they should get tired.

astura2• 5 years ago

Not true, I never, ever felt tired at "bedtime" as a kid, ever. I would protest my bedtime pretty much everyday because "I'm not tired." Fixed bedtime still "worked" for me because when you're 1) on a firm schedule and 2) laying in bed without anything else to do then sleep comes.

Oddskar• 5 years ago

I would (perhaps naively) think that children are the same as adults in the regard that we both need ample amount of time to start slowing down and relaxing before bed time.

aasasd2• 5 years ago

Just from reading through various health topics on Wikipedia, I'm now pretty sure that exercise influences much more than just fat and muscle mass. All the way to having anti-inflammatory effect because muscle secretes some stuff, working as an endocrine organ.

So if you decide to sleep more, perhaps you want to sacrifice something other than exercise.

Also I don't know how anyone can take BMI by itself seriously.

rajin4442• 5 years ago

Also I don't know how anyone can take BMI by itself seriously.

BMI is very useful if you're looking at large data sets. BMI for individuals is not very useful. I'm not sure of the efficacy of BMI for ~1200 data points.

aasasd2• 5 years ago

So the entire use of BMI starts with the assumption that its increase can only mean more fat. I practically can see the headlines: ‘BMI on the rise for the past decade, obesity epidemic in Jocktown! We need even more gyms!’

mmmmmbop• 5 years ago

Are there actually any schools that start later than usual, say at 10am or 11am? All I can find online is lots of articles about how schools should start later, but somehow no schools that actually offer that. If there aren't any, how come?

alistairSH4• 5 years ago

Quite a few high schools in the US have flipped their start times, moving the older students to a later start. But, that's only relative to other schools, so might mean a 9am start for teens instead of 7am.

I haven't heard of any schools starting later than this, nor I have I heard any place discuss doing so (at least not as a serious proposal).

TaupeRanger2• 5 years ago

The discussion here is, frankly, better and more informative than the study or article, which was cross-sectional (non-randomized, population full of unknown confounding variables) and largely doesn't tell us anything meaningful that we didn't already know from firsthand experience or introspection.

alistairSH4• 5 years ago

It isn't specifically mentioned in the linked article - did the study account for "more sleep = more activity"? I know I'm less likely to be active when I'm exhausted - there's a direct link between my overall stress level (physical+mental) and my amount of exercise.

ralfn• 5 years ago

Keep in mind that that is an American problem.

Here in the Netherlands and most of Europe kids go to school independently. They are not constant prisoners of adults stuck in american suburbia where one can only safely go from A to B by car.

Here, they just make a sandwich themselves. Grab their bike and go to school when school starts. The schedule of parents might mean the parents are already gone. The schedules do not need to be in sync and mom isn't the kids drive around slave.

mandelbrotwurst• 5 years ago

For what it's worth, there are many areas in the U.S. where the infrastructure would reasonably allow for this and it's more a question of whether the parents would allow it. Even where this isn't possible, it's very common for schools to offer buses from extremely near to their homes to the school, which is a process that as you have pointed out, parents do not necessarily need to be involved in.

aaroninsf• 5 years ago

Looked for this in comments.

Here in SF our kids have some of this independence; but their school is still miles away. I walked to my suburban school in the 70's. SF has density to permit some independence but then undoes the benefit of that with its schooling model and chaos.

Pre-pandemic my kids could take MUNI. I biked with them. The bike ride is not bad but is too dangerous for kids who have not yet developed paranoid city road awareness. So my spouse or I got with them every time..

But this is already an unusual circumstance. Among urban friends in other places I can't think of more than a handful whose kids were independent in this fashion.

Here in the Bay Area places like Fairfax let you live the dream though... it seems plausible that if the ground shift to "hybrid" or full remote is real and sustained, there will be even more reordering of lifestyle and population in pursuit of this.

That would be a silver lining...

ericcholis• 5 years ago

This is how my experience was after about age 10. I was close enough to school that I could choose to ride my bike or take the bus. I would get myself out the door every morning and usually make it home before any parents.

I've recently read that the erosion of free-roaming children has increased exponentially in the years that I've since graduated highschool.

spothedog1• 5 years ago

It's because everything in the US is based around car infrastructure. Kids can't drive or cross 6 lane roads to get to school.

klyrs• 5 years ago

When do they gain this independence? Where I live, kids mustn't be left alone before age 10. We moved a few blocks from a school, and look forward to the day when kiddo can do just what you say.

MrRiddle• 5 years ago

When I was growing up in Serbia, we were going to school alone in about second half of first grade, so about 7 and a half years. Some parents wait till second grade.

It also depends whether you need to hop on a bus, then it’s definitely at second grade.

watwut5• 5 years ago

In Germany, 6 years old are expecred go to school alone. However, I would not expect 6 years old to be able to leave house on time alone. Someone older needs to watch time.

hourislate• 5 years ago

The study is an Australian study on Pediatric Quality of Life and has determined that children aged 11-12 years can benefit from extra sleep and exercise.

It was not about how "Useless American Children are" Many kids in America get up everyday and dutifully and independently handle the process of attending school. There was even a term called "Latch Key Kid", where a child had a key and basically locked the door on the way out and opened when they got home.

FrojoS• 5 years ago

Yup. A similar term (Schlüsselkind) was popular in Germany when I went to school in the 90s and had a negative connotation. https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlüsselkind

IG_Semmelweiss2• 5 years ago

This is turning into an american problem not just for transportation reasons.

For example, take the general culture of outrage. Over time has permeated into the right to have free-roaming kids.

The US has had high profile cases of parents sent to jail , because of twitter gestapo reporting. When the pendulum swung too hard on this direction, there was also pushback: concerned parents lobbied to pass laws enshrining the right of parents to make the determination of when kids can roam freely.

The answer is more complex, but certainly there is an american angle to it.

desktopninja• 5 years ago

Fascinating. Personally recommend following as close as possible to one's circadian cycle. I do believe though, overtime one can adjust it to best fit the location (in the world) you're in.

More sleep or more exercise: the best time trade-offs for children’s health

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