FINDINGS

Survey Finds Most Teenagers Lack Sleep

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The United States is raising a nation of sleep-deprived kids, with only 20 percent receiving the recommended nine hours of shut-eye on school nights and more than one in four reporting dozing off in class, according to a survey by the National Sleep Foundation.

Many are arriving at school late because of oversleeping and others are driving drowsy.

"In the competition between the natural tendency to stay up late and early school-start times, a teen's sleep is what loses out," said Jodi A. Mindell of St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia.

School-age children and teenagers should get at least nine hours of sleep a day, according to the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research at the National Institutes of Health.

The poll found that sixth-graders were sleeping an average of 8.4 hours on school nights and 12th-graders just 6.9 hours.

The survey, taken in November, interviewed 1,602 adult caregivers and their children age 11 to 17. It had a margin of error of 2.4 percentage points.

-- From News Services

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