Research article
Sufficient Sleep, Physical Activity, and Sedentary Behaviors

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2011.08.009Get rights and content

Background

Insufficient sleep among adolescents is common and has adverse health and behavior consequences. Understanding associations of physical activity and sedentary behaviors with sleep duration could shed light on ways to promote sufficient sleep.

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to determine whether physical activity and sedentary behaviors are associated with sufficient sleep (8 or more hours of sleep on an average school night) among U.S. high school students.

Methods

Data were from the 2009 national Youth Risk Behavior Survey and are representative of 9th–12th-grade students nationally (n=14,782). Associations of physical activity and sedentary behaviors with sufficient sleep were determined using logistic regression models controlling for confounders. Data were analyzed in October 2010.

Results

Students who engaged in ≥60 minutes of physical activity daily during the 7 days before the survey had higher odds of sufficient sleep than those who did not engage in ≥60 minutes on any day. There was no association between the number of days students were vigorously active ≥20 minutes and sufficient sleep. Compared to their respective referent groups of 0 hours on an average school day, students who watched TV ≥4 hours/day had higher odds of sufficient sleep and students who played video or computer games or used a computer for something that was not school work ≥2 hours/day had lower odds of sufficient sleep.

Conclusions

Daily physical activity for ≥60 minutes and limited computer use are associated with sufficient sleep among adolescents.

Section snippets

Sample and Survey Administration

Data for the current study were from the 2009 national school-based Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). The YRBS was developed by the CDC to monitor the prevalence of priority health risk behaviors among youth and has been conducted biennially since 1991. In 2009, a three-stage cluster sample design was used to obtain a nationally representative sample of students in Grades 9 through 12. Sampling strategies and psychometric properties of the questionnaire have been reported elsewhere.32, 33, 34

Demographic Characteristics of the Study Sample and Prevalence of Sufficient Sleep

The sample was 52.5% male and most students were white (61.4%); students were fairly evenly distributed by grade (Table 1). The prevalence of sufficient sleep overall among U.S. high school students was 30.9%. The prevalence of sufficient sleep was higher among male than female students; higher among Hispanic than white and black students and students of other races/ethnicities; and higher among white students than students of other races/ethnicities. All pairwise comparisons by grade were

Discussion

The current study found that fewer than one in three (30.9%) U.S. high school students get sufficient sleep on school nights, similar to what has been reported elsewhere.5, 36 Associations between the number of days that students were physically active for at least 60 minutes and sufficient sleep were attenuated when demographic and risk behavior variables were included as controls, indicating the importance of controlling for these factors in future studies. Importantly, however, the adjusted

Conclusion

Insufficient sleep is an often unrecognized contributor to adolescent health and behavior problems. The results of the present study show, however, that adolescents who engage in at least 60 minutes of physical activity daily are more likely to get sufficient sleep, providing yet another reason to endorse daily physical activity. The finding that students who use a computer or play video games 2 or more hours/day are less likely to get sufficient sleep suggests that implementing strategies to

References (38)

  • S.D. Youngstedt

    Effects of exercise on sleep

    Clin Sports Med

    (2005)
  • M.A. Carskadon et al.

    Pubertal changes in daytime sleepiness

    Sleep

    (1980)
  • M.A. Carskadon

    The second decade

  • A.R. Wolfson et al.

    Sleep schedules and daytime functioning in adolescents

    Child Dev

    (1998)
  • 2006 Sleep in America Poll

    (2006)
  • E.M. O'Brien et al.

    Sleep and risk-taking behavior in adolescents

    Behav Sleep Med

    (2005)
  • M.-Y. Chen et al.

    Adequate sleep among adolescents is positively associated with health status and health-related behaviors

    BMC Public Health

    (2006)
  • A. Weiss et al.

    The association of sleep duration with adolescents' fat and carbohydrate consumption

    Sleep

    (2010)
  • N.K. Gupta et al.

    Is obesity associated with poor sleep quality in adolescents?

    Am J Hum Biol

    (2002)
  • Cited by (110)

    • Media & sleep

      2023, Encyclopedia of Child and Adolescent Health, First Edition
    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text