Parental Accuracy of Reporting Child Sleep Duration: Examining Sleep and Childhood Obesity in Midwestern Latinx Youth

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between the accuracy of parental reporting of children’s sleep duration compared to objectively measured child sleep and tested whether any discrepancies were related to childhood obesity prevalence in a sample of Latinx families (N = 119). A paired sample t-test revealed that parents significantly overestimated their child’s sleep duration by 1.33 hours, t(86) = 6.69, p < .001. Using a one-way ANOVA, no significant differences were found in children’s BMI percentile when grouped by the parent’s accuracy of their child’s sleep duration F(3, 83) = .76, p = .52. A potential, although non-significant, trend regarding parent accuracy and child BMI may merit further examination. Future research should seek to determine if the discrepancy in parent reported child sleep duration is indeed linked with increased child BMI and if this knowledge could be used in targeted intervention efforts to reduce childhood obesity.