Sleep and its variability in relation to behavioral outcomes in school‐age children with overweight and obesity

This was a cross‐sectional study to examine sleep and its variability in relation to behavioral outcomes in school‐age children with overweight and obesity. A total of 246 school‐age children with overweight or obesity were recruited between 2019 and 2021 from 10 public elementary schools in Northern Taiwan. Parents completed sleep and behavior questionnaires, with children wearing an actigraphy monitor for 7 days. Average daily sleep duration by actigraphy was 7.52 h, with 84.6% of the children having clinically significant sleep disturbance scores and 68.3% having a total behavior problem score in the clinical range. Children were categorized by median split for sleep duration and sleep duration variability. Multivariate regression analyses showed that children in the insufficient (duration)‐stable (variability) sleep category had significantly higher scores for emotion problems (B = 0.94, p = 0.01), self‐control problems (B = 1.61, p