Doctors want schools to start later so kids can sleep
MICHELLE HEALY @BYMICHELLEHEALY USA TODAY
America’s pediatricians have a message for school administrators: Let the kids sleep.
The nation’s largest pediatrician group issued a policy statement this past week, just as millions of children are returning to school, calling for high school and middle school classes to begin at 8:30 a.m. or later. The move would be “an effective countermeasure to chronic sleep loss” and the “epidemic” of delayed, insufficient and erratic sleep patterns among the nation’s teens, the group noted.
Many factors, “including biological changes in sleep associated with puberty, lifestyle choices and academic demands,” negatively impact teens’ ability to get enough sleep. 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, which was published online in Pediatrics.
“As adolescents go up in grade, they’re less likely with each passing year to get anything resembling sufficient sleep,” says Judith Owens, director of sleep medicine at Children National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and lead author of the AAP statement.
Chronic sleep loss in children and adolescents “can, without hyperbole, really be called a public health crisis,” Owens says.
Among the consequences of insufficient sleep for teens, according to the statement:
Increased risk for obesity, stroke and type 2 diabetes; higher rates of automobile accidents; lower levels of physical activity; increased risk for anxiety and depression; lower academic achievement, poor school attendance; increased dropout rates; and impairments in attention, memory, organization and time management.
According to U.S. Department of Education statistics, approximately 43% of the over 18,000 public high schools in the U.S. have a start time before 8 a.m.; 15% started at 8:30 a.m. or later.
1 in 5
Adolescents getting nine hours of sleep on school nights
45%
Percentage of adolescents sleeping less than eight hours
Source: 2006 National Sleep Foundation poll
