Docs: Early to rise not wise for kids
Let them sleep! That’s the message from the nation’s largest pediatrician group, which, in a new policy statement, says delaying the start of high school and middle school classes to 8:30 a.m. or later is “an effective countermeasure to chronic sleep loss” and the “epidemic” of delayed, insufficient and erratic sleep patterns among teens.
Multiple factors, “including biological changes in sleep associated with puberty, lifestyle choices, and academic demands,” negatively impact teens’ ability to get enough sleep, and pushing back school start times is key to helping them achieve optimal levels of sleep — 8½ to 9½ hours a night, says the American Academy of Pediatrics statement, released today and published online in Pediatrics.
Just 1 in 5 adolescents get nine hours of sleep on school nights, and 45% sleep less than eight hours, according to a 2006 poll by the National Sleep Foundation (NSF).
Chronic sleep loss in children and adolescents “can, without hyperbole, really be called a public health crisis,” says Judith Owens, director of sleep medicine at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and lead author of the AAP statement.
Insufficient sleep for teens, according to the statement, can lead to a host of health problems, such as increased risk for obesity, stroke and type 2 diabetes. Lack of sleep can also affect school performance, the pediatrics group says.
Napping, extending sleep on weekends and caffeine consumption can temporarily counteract sleepiness, but they do not restore optimal alert- ness, the AAP says.
Research on student performance in schools that have reset the start clock, including Minneapolis Public Schools, “shows benefits across the board,” says Kyla Wahlstrom, director of the Center for Applied Research and Education Improvement at the University of Minnesota.
According to U.S. Department of Education, about 43% of the more than 18,000 U.S. public high schools have a start time before 8 a.m.; 15% 8:30 a.m. or later.