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A little exercise can go a long way to a better night's sleep for overweight kids.

Georgia researchers report children who participated in regular aerobic exercise during 14 weeks of an after school program saw significant improvements in their sleep-disordered breathing (SDB). Even kids in the study without evidence of the condition slept better.

The study involved about 100 overweight children between age 7s and 11 whose parents filled out the Pediatric Sleep Questionnaire, a survey aimed at uncovering SDB in children. Surprisingly, about one of every four children of the group was identified as having SDB -- a higher figure than predicted by the researchers.

"Existing data suggests about 2 percent of children have sleep problems but with 37 percent of children now considered overweight, the percentage may be much higher," reports study author Catherine L. Davis, Ph.D., a clinical health psychologist at the Medical College of Georgia. "We believe this study is a red flag to pediatricians to ask parents about their children's snoring."

To see if regular exercise would help, researchers compared three groups. The first group of kids didn't exercise at all, the second group exercised for 20 minutes a day, and the third group exercised for 40 minutes. SDB was cut in half among the kids who exercised and dropped by 80 percent in those who exercised for 40 minutes.

The improvements were noted even though the children did not actually lose weight during the exercise program.

"Aerobic exercise programs may be valuable for prevention and treatment of sleep-disordered breathing in overweight children," write the authors.

This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, who offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, go to: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.

SOURCE: Obesity, 2006;14:1-7

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