Sleeping in parents' bed could stop obesity

Letting your child climb into your bed when they have a nightmare may stave off obesity problems, a preliminary study has found. The feeling of security a child gets from being able to spend the rest of the night in a parent's bed, rather than being sent back to their children's beds, could stop them eating as much throughout the day. Children who were allowed to cosy up with their parents were three times less likely to be obese than those who were never allowed to do so. Researchers at Copenhagen University Hospitals studied a group of 500 Danish children, aged from two to six years old, to find the link. Each child was considered to be at greater risk of being overweight, either because they weighed more as a baby, because their mother was poor, or because their mother was overweight before getting pregnant. In the past, studies have suggested that children who are allowed to move into their parents' bed do not sleep as well as those who are not allowed, and poor-quality sleep is linked to obesity. This study disagrees with these previous findings, however. The study's author, Nanna Olsen, said: "Types of negative psychosocial responses, such as feelings of rejection when not being allowed to enter parents' bed, may lead to [being] overweight," according to US News (May 9th).