Mar 25, 2014 01:18 PM EDT By Jaleesa Baulkman, UniversityHerald Reporter

Toddlers who sleep less are more likely to develop obesity, according to a recent study HealthDay reported.

Researchers from the University College London found that 16-month-old children who sleep for less than 10 hours a day are more likely to consume more food than those who sleep for at least 13 hours, HealthDay reported.  Researchers suggest that shorter sleep may disrupt the regulation of appetite hormones.

"We know that shorter sleep in early life increases the risk of obesity, so we wanted to understand whether shorter sleeping children consume more calories," Abi Fisher of the Health Behavior Research Centre at University College London said in a statement.  

For the study, researchers collected data from more than 1,300 British families. Study participants had their sleep measured when they were 16 months and their diet checked when they were 21 months old.

They found out that toddler who slept less consumed on average 105kcal more per day than children who slept for more than 13 hours, according to a press release. This is an increase of around 10 percent from 982kcal to 1087kcal.

According to the researchers, this is the first study to link amount of sleep to calorie consumption in children younger than 3 years.

"Previous studies in adults and older children have shown that sleep loss causes people to eat more, but in early life parents make most of the decisions about when and how much their children eat, so young children cannot be assumed to show the same patterns," Fisher said.

Although the study found an association between the toddler sleeping habits and food consumption, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

"The key message here is that shorter sleeping children may prone to consume too many calories," Fisher said. "Although more research is needed to understand why this might be, it is something parents should be made aware of."

Their findings were published in the International Journal of Obesity.

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