Lack of sleep major threat to teenagers' health
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-05-28 11:18

Lack of sleep has become an invisible threat to the health of teenagers, according to a recent survey by the China Youth and Children Research Center (CYCRC).

The survey, conducted among 5,846 students in Beijing, Shanghai,Chongqing and seven other cities, showed that 10.4 percent of those under 12 years old slept less than eight hours a day.

Among children aged 13, 14 and 15, there were 22.1 percent, 33.1 percent and 44.6 percent, respectively, sleeping less than eight hours per day, revealed the survey.

This was much lower than doctors recommendations that children and teenagers get up to at least nine hours of sleep, said the survey.

Experts blame it mainly on China's highly competitive education system. Even children in their early teens are made to focus on tests to enter prestigious high schools.

Parents and teachers usually put great pressure on children and teenagers to make them study hard, but leave them little time for relaxation. But the problem of lacking sleep has become so serious that experts are worried that it will harm students' memory, thinking and even physical growth.

Sun Hongyan, a CYCRC official, said that children's physical growth was mostly completed in their sleep.

"The time between 10 p.m. to 1 am is the most active period for the secretion of growth hormones and the metabolism of body cells. Invisible damages caused by the lack of sleep at this period, which is afflicting one tenth of primary school kids and one third of middle school students, cannot be made up by sleep in other times," Sun said.

Though children's physical growth may be slowed by lack of sleep, mentally they age prematurely and start behaving as grown-ups with adult concerns, she said.

"Sometimes I really want to give up, because I worry too much,"complained a sixth-grader in a "grown-up tone" of voice.

Sun reminded parents, schools and the whole society to pay more attention to this problem, hoping they take specific moves to ensure children get sufficient sleep and to provide them a healthy environment for growth.

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