William Atkins
Friday, 25 July 2008 20:19
Science -
Health
Page 1 of 2
Adolescent girls and young women were found by a U.S. study to put on extra weight when they recreationally use the Internet more than average, do not get enough sleep, and drink a lot of alcohol.
American medical researcher
Catherine Berkey and colleagues from Harvard Medical School (Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.), the Channing Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.); and the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center, Washington University School of Medicine (St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.) led the research study based on the "Growing Up Today Study" (
GUTS).
Their article “
Weight Gain in Older Adolescent Females: The Internet, Sleep, Coffee, and Alcohol” appears online in
The Journal of Pediatrics. Its authors are Catherine S. Berkey, Helaine R.H. Rockett, and Graham A. Colditz.
The objective of the study was to determine whether adolescent girls gained additional weight from the excessive use of the Internet, from insufficient sleep, and from the regular consumption of coffee and alcoholic beverages.
The researchers tested 5,036 girls from all fifty states of the United States between the ages of 14 and 21 years. The GUTS surveys were completed and returned to the researchers in 2001.
The surveys given to the young female subjects included typical activities during the past year on four exposures: (1) the recreational use of the Internet time, (2) amount of sleep, (3) consumption of caffeinated coffee, and (4) consumption of alcohol.
The researchers analyzed height and weight changes of the girls during a one-year period from 2000 to 2001, including body mass index (
BMI), a measure of weight in relation to height. They adjusted the statistics with respect to adolescent growth and development, activity and inactivity, and other related factors.
What did the researches find from the results of their study? Please read page two.
