By Aimee Keenan-Greene 

Fighting the battle of the bulge may start with hitting snooze. 

A new study in the journal Pediatrics says obese children are less likely to catch-up on missed sleep on weekends.  The combination of less sleep and a changing sleep pattern was associated with adverse metabolic outcomes.

Researchers observed children slept an average of 8 hours per night, regardless of their weight categorization. What they found was a trend between sleep and weight. For obese children, sleep duration was shorter and showed more variability on weekends, compared with school days. 

For overweight children, a mixed sleep pattern emerged. The presence of high variance in sleep duration or short sleep duration was more likely associated with altered insulin, low-density lipoprotein, and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein plasma levels. Children whose sleep patterns were at the lower end of sleep duration, particularly in the presence of irregular sleep schedules, exhibited the greatest health risk. 

Karen Spruyt, PhD and David Gozal, MD, of the Department of Pediatrics, Comer Children's Hospital and Pritzker School of Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, and Dennis L. Molfese, PhD, Birth Defects Center, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky completed the study.

Their goal was to explore the effects of duration and regularity of sleep schedules on BMI and the impact on metabolic regulation in children. They recruited 308 children ages 4 to 10 and assessed them with wrist actigraphs for 1 week in a cross-sectional study, along with BMI assessment. Fasting morning plasma levels of glucose, insulin, lipids, and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein also were measured for a subsample. 

Scientists now say educational campaigns for families may help decrease obesity rates in kids

Insomnia significantly affects 29 percent of children seen by child psychiatrists, according to a national survey released last summer.

Results from the survey of 1,273 members of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry appeared in the August 2010 issue of Sleep Medicine.

Sleep is vital to a child's growth. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends these daily sleep guidelines for kids:

0-2   mon   10.5-18 hours

2-12 mon   12-15 hours

1-3   yrs    12-14 hours

3-5   yrs    11-13 hours

5-12 yrs    10-11 hours