Association of Night-Time Screen-Viewing with Adolescents’ Diet, Sleep, Weight Status, and Adiposity

Night-time screen-viewing (SV) contributes to inadequate sleep and poor diet, and subsequently excess weight. Adolescents may use many devices at night, which can provide additional night-time SV. Purpose: To identify night-time SV patterns, and describe differences in diet, sleep, weight status, and adiposity between patterns in a cross-sectional and longitudinal manner. Methods: Adolescents (10–16 y) reported devices they viewed at night and completed food recalls. Accelerometry, anthropometrics, and imaging were conducted to measure sleep, weight status, and adiposity, respectively. Latent class analysis was performed to identify night-time SV clusters. Linear regression analysis was used to examine associations between clusters with diet, sleep, weight status, and adiposity. Results: Amongst 273 adolescents (12.5 ± 1.9 y, 54% female, 59% White), four clusters were identified: no SV (36%), primarily cellphone (32%), TV and portable devices (TV+PDs, 17%), and multiple PDs (17%). Most differences in sleep and adiposity were attenuated after adjustment for covariates. The TV+PDs cluster had a higher waist circumference than the no SV cluster in cross-sectional analysis. In longitudinal analysis, the primarily cellphone cluster had less change in waist circumference compared to the no SV cluster. Conclusions: Directing efforts towards reducing night-time SV, especially TV and PDs, may promote healthy development.