When teenagers do not get enough sleep they can become obese and develop addictions. To receive enough sleep, school start times must be moved back.
Students can develop unhealthy habits if they do not receive enough sleep for long enough. “Not getting enough sleep… is associated with several health risks including being overweight, drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco, and using drugs, as well as poor academic performance.” With school start times being so early, students are prone to develop these health risks.
In order to prevent these health risks, “teenagers aged 13 to 18 years should regularly sleep 8 to 10 hours per day for good health,” says the CDC. However, with homework and extracurricular activities, this amount of sleep is very hard to get. Nationwide Children’s says that teenagers in America only get an average of 7-7 ¼ hours of sleep per night, which could lead to unhealthy habits.
Teenagers may think that they can fall into a normal pattern of not getting enough sleep, but doing that makes students just as unhealthy. “Poor sleep habits can precede insomnia symptoms and various sleep disorders or your bad habits could be symptoms of something deeper.” Insomnia is a sleeping disorder having to do with trouble falling asleep at night. With how early students are expected to fall asleep, they already have enough on their plates and do not need a sleep disorder to make it any worse.
With all these unhealthy habits developing from lack of sleep, schools need to sacrifice starting times for students’ health. In light of recent OCPS board meetings and petitions, look to see a change in school start times; but until then, the bell rings at 7:20 am.