January 2020

Want to fight the obesity epidemic? #LockTheClock

Editor’s Note: I was happy to run a guest post from my own son, and now I’m happy to run one from a young person I’ve never met! (Don’t worry, I checked him out, and he’s a real person.) I will have another post about the amazing experience of being featured on the Daily Show soon, but wanted to get this post up first. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. As we saw in Illinois, student involvement can go a long way! —S.Y.

DST and Obesity (Photo from Unsplash)

The obesity epidemic is no joke.

The rate of obesity in the United States is rising among both adults and children. From 1990 to 2015, the rate of obesity among adults rose from less than 15 percent to almost 40 percent. Children are not immune either. CDC data indicates that 13.7 million children are obese.

The economic cost of obesity is also a concern. The CDC reported that it cost $147 billion in 2008 dollars.

Of course, the obesity debate is subject to partisan squabbling, pitting the “food police” versus those among the more libertarian camp. Thankfully, there is a bipartisan response to the epidemic that would anger neither of these groups. 

That response? #LockTheClock. 

Numerous studies have shown that shifts into and out of Daylight Saving Time (DST) increases laziness. One 2012 study looked at cyberloafing and found a positive correlation between cyberloafing and the spring transition into DST.

The spring shift into DST—when the light is moved into the afternoon—has been demonstrated to increase physical activity among children in the afternoon.  

This effect is not limited to children. Measuring the time before the fall back to Standard Time and the transition into DST, two researchers writing in the Journal of Environmental Psychology found that improving lighting conditions in the afternoon was likely to cause an increase in both cycling and walking. 

The researchers studied cycling and walking patterns in Arlington County Virginia from 2011 to 2016. Their findings showed that when compared to dark evening conditions, the hour of “extra sunlight” from DST “resulted in a 62 percent increase in pedestrians and a 38 percent increase in cyclists.”

An additional study from the University of Washington estimated the economic costs of the DST extension in 2007. This extension put the United States on DST for an additional month in the spring. The researchers used this change as a study period and found that the extension resulted in $250 million in health expenditure savings. And this was a conservative estimate, as they note that savings could have been as high as $8.33 billion. 

Why? Simply put, more daylight in the afternoon means that more people spend time outside instead of sitting and watching TV. People spent as much as 30 more minutes outside per day, compared to the previous DST-ST transition time. This translated to a 1-lb reduction in fat every 2.5 weeks. Not bad for just moving daylight around. 

So sure, DST won’t singlehandedly defeat the obesity epidemic. But considering everything else the DST-ST transitions do to people, locking the clock for permanent DST is a cost-effective way to incentivize exercise. 

So, Congress, your move. For the health of your constituents, please #LockTheClock.

Jonathan Helton is a student majoring in Law and Politics at Freed-Hardeman University. He is interested in miscellaneous types of public policy and has published articles about foreign aid and U.S. maritime legislation. While in high school, he was an active member of his debate club and had the pleasure of debating about DST during one year. This article represents some of the research he compiled. 

Sleepy Teens Agree: #LockTheClock. OK, Boomer?

Editor’s Note: I always love running guest posts, and especially love them when written by my son! Truth be told, this started out as a class assignment, but when he told me he linked to my site from his paper, I had to read it, and I love it. (Proud dad, etc.)

And by the way, this is becoming a key part of the #LockTheClock movement: One of the last arguments made against getting rid of clock changing is that we shouldn’t force students to go to school in the dark. My response has always been the same: They are already mostly going to school in the dark in rural areas and in the northernmost parts of the country, and it’s time to adjust the start times, especially for high schools. That’s why I say we should have a year-long phase-in time for fixing DST so that schools can look at what the clock time will be relative to the sun time for the next school year, and make adjustments that are right for their districts.

In some places, that may mean high school starts at 9:30 or even 10 a.m. Do you know one teenager who would object to that?

Anyway, here’s that post:

Teens Need Sleep!
Unsplash photo by Kinga Cichewicz

Through no fault of their own, teens are sleep deprived.

The current education system in the US is not set up for the success of teens. Despite the plethora of evidence in support of later start time, there has not yet been the shift. While there are obstacles to the move, there is nothing that is big enough to outweigh the clear benefits of a later start. If the US wants to have successful teens, it needs to shift its school start times to later in the day. 

Teens need sleep, and lots of it, if they want to function at a normal or excellent level. In order for teens to get this sleep, they need to sleep in until later in the day. Teens don’t start secreting melatonin until, on average, 10:45 p.m. Additionally, teens don’t stop those secretions until eight in the morning. When combined this is a brutal double punch that prevents teens from going to bed early, and makes it difficult to wake up in the morning. The obvious solution here is not to change biology, but instead to accommodate for it by delaying school start times.

The consequences of teens not getting enough sleep are drastic. Teens are more likely to use cigarettes, drugs and alcohol. Teenage depression is shown to be closely tied to the amount of sleep that individuals get. In the age of higher than ever rates of depression, the only logical action seems to be taking steps to reduce this statistic. Additionally, the highest killer of teens, car crashes, is only aided and abetted by sleep deprived drivers; yet another example of avoidable suffering. 

To be fair, there are arguments for maintaining the current system. New start times would require a reworking of many transportation patterns. While this may have slight initial challenges, it is nothing that can’t be worked around. Additionally, many teenagers are responsible for getting themselves to school and would appreciate the later start. Despite the argument that teens would simply stay up later, the research finds something different. Some parents and professionals worry that a later ending time would leave students too worn out for their sports, arts, and other activities. In truth, however, the well rested students would train harder, think more creatively, and excel throughout the day. While the points exist against later start times, the reality is, in fact, in support of the pushback.

A later start time would also help solve the problem of Daylight Saving Time. One frequent argument for not moving into year-round daylight time is that it would force students into traveling to school while in the dark. Later start times would fix this, giving not only the benefits from the later start, but the benefits from permanent DST. The shift to later start times could be the event that triggers the move, or vice versa. Either way, everyone comes out on top.

Teens need sleep, it’s about time they were given it. Moving the school day later saves lives, improves performance, and generally improves life for the world’s future leaders.