Dinner-to-bed time is independently associated with overweight/obesity in Chinese school-aged children

Purpose Little is known about the association between dinner-to-bed time and obesity. Thus, this study was aimed to assess the relationships between dinner-to-bed and overweight/obesity in Chinese school-aged children in Ningbo, China. Methods Data of this study were based on 1667 schoolchildren (14–15 years) from 14 primary schools participated in this study in China. Anthropometric measurement of height, body weight and waist circumference (WC) was performed. Information about meal duration and other lifestyle behaviors was collected using a self-administered questionnaire. Multivariable logistic regression model was performed to assess the association between dinner-to-bed time and overweight/obesity. Restricted cubic spline regression was drawn to evaluate the shape of the relation between dinner-bed-time and the odds of overweight. Results Among the study participants, the prevalence of overweight was 17.6%, and the mean of dinner-to-bed time was 4.26 (0.93) h. In the logistic regression analysis, participants who had dinner-to-bed time less than 3 h or 3.01 ~ ≦ 4.00 h are more likely to be overweight (OR = 1.94, 95% CI 1.10–3.42; OR = 1.65, 95% CI 1.03–2.65, respectively) or characterised by abdominal obesity (OR = 3.03, 95% CI 1.86–4.95; OR = 2.61, 95% CI 1.73–3.92, respectively) compared with dinner-to-bed time more than 5 h. In addition, long dinner-to-bed time was associated with lower risks of overweight (OR = 0.83, 95% CI 0.70–0.97) and abdominal obesity (OR = 0.63, 95% CI 0.54–0.73). The cubic spline regression analysis showed that the association between dinner-to–bed time and overweight/abdominal obesity seems to be a linear. Conclusions This study indicates that short dinner-to-bed time is associated with an increased likelihood of being overweight or characterised by abdominal obesity among Chinese school-aged children. Level of evidence Level V; cross-section descriptive study.