Adolescent Overweight

Posted by admin in Sunday, July 20th 2008

Adolescent girls who spend much time on the Internet are more prone to see how their weight increases slowly than the teenagers who spend less time in front of the computer, recent research shows.

And the association between computer use and the weight was held when the researchers took into account the amount of exercise that girls did. Researchers at Harvard also found that a lack of sleep and alcohol consumption were associated with an increase in weight.

“We found a greater weight gain, after adjusting growth in stature and other factors including physical activity for girls who spent more recreational time on the Internet, sleeping less and drinking as much alcohol” The author of the study said Catherine Berkey, bioestadista of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Faculty of Medicine at Harvard.

The survey results were published in the July release of the magazine The Journal of Pediatrics.

Berkey’s study included data on more than 5000 teenage girls across the United States. The girls were between 14 and 21 years old. In 2001, they completed surveys detailing their use of the Internet, sleep habits, consumption of coffee, alcohol consumption and physical activity. In 2000 measured the weight and height for girls, and once again in 2001.

The researchers asked the girls who reported only their recreational use of the Internet, not the use for school or work.

Adolescent girls who spent more than 16 hours a week on the Internet were almost twice as likely to experience a change in their body mass index, even after the researchers controlled the dream, coffee and alcohol use. Once the researchers took into account physical activity and use of TV and video games, girls who used the Internet more remained 57 percent more likely to have increased weight.

Girls older than 18 who slept less than five hours per night on average who consumed two or more alcoholic drinks a week, and they spent more time on the Internet averaged a weight gain of four pounds (almost two kilograms) during the year.

If one spends time in front of the computer, might have less time for exercise, but since the association was held after adjusting for the exercise, the findings can not be explained entirely by the lack of physical activity, apuntó.Berkey noted that a variety of factors can cause weight gain. A lack of sleep can lead to metabolic changes that could predispose girls to gain weight, and obviously alcoholic beverages contain extra calories that can lead to excess weight. If one spends time in front of the computer, might have less time for exercise, but since the association was held after adjusting for the exercise, the findings can not be explained entirely by the lack of physical activity, he said.

Although researchers monitored the exercise, Madelyn Fernstrom, director of the founder of Weight Management Centre of University Medical Center in Pittsburgh, noted that “people who spend more time on the Internet will have much less overall activity in daily life that someone that is not in front of the computer. ” Even stand uses more calories than sitting at a computer, he said.

The researchers were surprised that coffee consumption did not appear to have an effect, but the study was carried out before large increase in the popularity of coffee drinks are rich in calories, so that the study results could differ if do now, said Berkey.

Berkey said that parents should know that “encouraging adolescents to sleep more, spend less time on the Internet and avoid alcohol could have the added benefit of helping maintain a healthy body weight.”

“Four pounds may not seem like much, but in those years is important to have a stable weight. A positive change will result in a cascade of other positive changes,” Fernstrom said. For example, if a teenager no longer drink coffee, you can sleep better, and then not turn to sugary foods rich in carbohydrates to keep awake the next day.

Fernstrom, who probably believes that these findings can be applied to adolescents of both sexes, advised that parents should ideally begin to limit the use of computer and other potentially negative behaviors when children are small, so they do not resist both the rules when they have older.

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