AWARENESS ON SLEEP DEPRIVATION AND SKIPPING BREAKFAST AMONG URBAN TEENAGERS - A SURVEY

Abstract

Students in their teens are some of the most sleep-deprived people in the nation. Adolescents have a delayed circadian preference. The nocturnal preference , or shift of the circadian system to a later time , has been associated with puberty. This change occurs in association with puberty; more physically mature adolescents have a preference for later bedtimes and may have a lower homeostatic sleep drive, and consequently, are less sleepy at night.Sleep deprivation and sleepiness are caused by several reasons and have numerous negative consequences. Students get inadequate sleep because they go to bed late and wake up early which results in daytime sleepiness.It is a questionnaire based survey conducted among 135 urban teenagers. From the results , it was evident that ,when asked about the reason behind the sleep deprivation, the majority of urban teenagers (73.8%) blamed social media and games as a predominant cause , about 26.8% of them couldn’t sleep due to overload of academic work. 62.2% of the participants had a habit of skipping breakfast regularly, and the major reason (66.7%) for their skipping breakfast is getting up late in the morning. It is evident from the survey that urban children need proper guidance from teachers and parents to increase the sleep duration, decrease screen time and to take a balanced breakfast every day.