Children who sleep five or fewer hours a day almost doubles the risk of becoming an obese person in the future. The Spanish Society of Endocrinology and Nutrition (SEEN) and the Spanish Society for the Study of Obesity (SEEDO) on Wednesday celebrated the ‘National Day of the obese person’ under the slogan ‘obesity never sleeps’, to alert this problematic.

“In the last decade has revealed the existence of a close correlation between a few hours sleep and an increased risk of being obese,” said the president of SEEN, Dr. Javier Salvador.

“That is why to prevent the development of obesity in our society and to try to make obese people lose weight, along with the required lifestyle changes (diet and exercise), you must sleep at least seven or eight hours day, “he added.

In this sense, the president of SEED, Professor Felipe Casanueva, pointed to scientific evidence that obese children sleep less than children who have “normal weight”.

This expert has warned of “big problem” posed by childhood obesity, “since a high percentage of obese children remains the disorder as adults.”

Sleep deprivation leads to an increase of all the hormones that encourage the appetite “and specifically intake of foods rich in fat and sugars,” said Casanueva. For this reason, the expert has opted to sleep at least eight hours a day to maintain a healthy weight.

The 23 percent of the Spanish population over 18 is obese, a condition that increases the risk of other serious diseases such as diabetes mellitus type 2, hypertension, sleep apnea-hypopnea sleep, and various types of neoplasms such as colon cancer.