ASSOCIATION BETWEEN QUALITY OF SLEEP AND OVERWEIGHT/OBESITY IN A POPULATION OF ADOLESCENT STUDENTS

• DOI: 10.22533/at.ed.1592762225119

• Palavras-chave: Sleep quality; teenagers; overweight; obesity

• Keywords: Sleep quality; teenagers; overweight; obesity

• Abstract:

  Framework

  Sleep is a vital necessity for our physical, emotional and cognitive health. However, teens face many changing challenges and this is reflected in sleep patterns, including sleep timing and sleep duration and quality. Sleep is often delayed and of short duration. Inadequate sleep is associated with deficits in adolescent functioning. In addition to endogenous and exogenous factors, environmental conditions also exert a decisive influence. Among these, overweight/obesity is often correlated with poor sleep quality.

  Methodology
  Quantitative, descriptive-correlational study, in which 138 participated with a non-probabilistic sample of 138 adolescents. A sociodemographic questionnaire and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index were selected and applied as measurement instruments.

  Results

  Most adolescents (61.6%) had poor sleep quality, which was contradicted by their perception of it. Their perception seems very misleading, with 81.2% considering that they have good quality sleep. The average daily hours was 7.8h, below the recommended value for this age group.

  A relationship between sleep quality and overweight and obesity was not found. We can consider that this finding can be at least partially explained by the low percentage of overweight/obese adolescents found, which is not in line with most studies or with the perception of the phenomenon in clinical practice.

  Conclusions

  Most teenagers have poor sleep quality without realizing it. Although we did not verify an association between sleep quality and overweight/obesity due to factors that are yet to be identified, this poor sleep quality forces us to devise strategies to mitigate this serious problem in this population.