A new research suggests that children who sleep less are more likely to become overweight apart from having negative effects on their social and emotional well-being and school performance.

Conducted by researchers at Northwestern University, the study is the first of its kind to look for a link between sleep, Body Mass Index (BMI) and overweight status in children. The study also looked to find whether race, ethnicity and income has any affect.

Says Emily Snell, co-author of "Sleep and the Body Mass Index and Overweight Status of Children and Adolescents", "Our study suggests that earlier bedtimes, later wake times and later school start times could be an important and relatively low-cost strategy to help reduce childhood weight problems. We found even an hour of sleep makes a big difference in weight status. Sleeping an additional hour reduced young children's chance of being overweight from 36 percent to 30 percent, while it reduced older children's risk from 34 percent to 30 percent."

Snell conducted the study along with Emma K. Adam and Greg J. Duncan, who are assistant professor and professor of education and social policy, respectively at Northwestern. The researchers also suggest that bedtimes are a vital factor in overweight status children who are aged between 3 to 8 years.

"Many American children are simply not getting the sleep they need. Parents, policymakers and health care providers all are concerned about the obesity epidemic among children. Our results suggest that something as simple as helping children sleep more at night could reduce their risk of being overweight", adds Snell.

The study was published in the latest. issue of Child Development and was conducted using data from the Child Development Supplement of the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics.