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The purpose of this presentation is to report baseline findings related to sleep, gender, weight and mood in adolescents participating in the NIH funded, COPE healthy lifestyles intervention which was delivered by trained health teachers in high schools in a large, southwest metropolitan area.
Methods:
Several analyses were conducted on this large sample of 14-17 year old adolescents including: (1) chi square (2) t-tests, (3) frequencies, and (4) Pearson’s correlations. Comparisons were conducted between males/females and overweight/non-overweight participants.
Results:
There were 779 teens in this study. The majority of adolescents were Hispanic (67.52%). A large proportion of teens were overweight including 43.2% males and 41.8% females. Adolescent self-reported the number of hours of sleep obtained on school nights. Adolescents who were overweight or obese reported significantly less sleep each night (p<.001). Females also reported significantly less sleep at night (p=.028). There also was a significant relationship between hours slept at night and depressive symptomology (r=-.29, p<.01) and anxiety (r=-.31, p<.01).
Conclusion:
Findings from this study support a relationship between sleep and weight. Additionally, duration of sleep was related to negative mood indicators. Addressing sleep patterns in adolescence as a component of a healthy lifestyle intervention has the potential to improve overall health.