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Physical activity may be able to help 25 out of 100 overweight children that have tested positive for sleep-disordered breathing. A study recently published in the November issue of Obesity studied 100 children that were overweight and had sleep breathing problems and found that increasing physical activity helped improve their sleeping.

The children reduced there sleep breathing disorders by half and for those in the study that exercised the most, had an 80 percent reduction in breathing problems while sleeping.

The study included 100 black and white boys and girls that were ages 7 to 11. The study was aimed at researching the effects exercise has on metabolism. There were three groups; on group was a control group, the other two groups exercised either 20 minutes or 40 minutes.

The researchers reported that children that did not have sleep-disordered breathing also improved on their sleep when the exercised. They found this out be a Pediatric Sleep Questionnaire.

"Existing data suggests about two percent of children have sleep problems but with 37 percent of children now considered overweight, the percentage may be much higher," says Dr. Davis, clinical health psychologist at the Medical College of Georgia and the study's first author.

"We believe this study is a red flag to pediatricians to ask parents about their children's snoring," she says. "Snoring does not appear to be benign in children. Not sleeping well can affect children's behavior, their ability to function in school. We don't know yet if it affects their development."

With more children being at risk for developing type 2 diabetes during their teenage years other conditions like sleep apnea can become prevelant do to a side effect of being overweight.

The symptoms of sleep disordered breathing can range from mild symptoms to more severe ones. The researcher’s list snoring, loud breathing and daytime inattentiveness as symptoms that helped lead to a diagnoses of sleep disordered breathing. A polysomnography test measures the breathing during a sleep study to determine if a child has disrupted breathing during rest.

"We asked parents about caffeine intake, medications, usual bed and wake times to see if the children are chronically sleep-deprived, asked if they had a tonsillectomy because that usually fixes sleep apnea in children," Dr. Davis says.

Instead of the child appearing sleepy from lack of sleep, they instead had issues with behavior more often that often showed up as ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The children may be slurping on caffeine drinks to help alleviate their sleepiness.

The exercise did not slim the children down on the body mass index (BMI) rating, but they did get fitter and built muscles and lost body fat. The children would also have to modify their eating in addition to exercise in order to lose weight. Other studies with obese adults have shown that exercise can help improve sleep apnea symptoms.

"Kids can have sleep apnea for a couple of reasons," she says. "A normal-weight child can have sleep apnea because they have big tonsils and adenoids and many times their problems can be cured with surgery."

If a child gains weight, this can cause sleep problems by narrowing the airway. While sleeping the tongue may relax and block the airway and cause sleep apnea. Snoring is usually present in individuals with sleep apnea. The extra tissue causes the vibration or snoring sound when breathing while asleep.

The researchers would like to have more pediatricians ask if the children snore. If parents know that their child snores make sure to let the doctor be aware of the problem. If your child is overweight, have them increase their physical activity levels.