A study of 2,200 Australian children and teens ages 9 to 16 shows that kids who go to bed late and wake up late have a 1.5 times higher risk of being obese than kids who go to bed early and wake up early.
However, researchers did note that the kids who slept late got the same amount of sleep in total as the kids who slept early, meaning that "the timing of the sleep is even more important," said study researcher Carol Maher, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow with the University of South Australia.
