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Video: Doctors push for later start times as school year kicks off

Posted at 4:27 PM, Aug 25, 2014
and last updated 2014-08-25 22:46:03-04

Another school year is starting up across the country, and that apparently means another conversation about start-times.

In a statement, the American Academy of Pediatrics said it's advocating start-times for middle and high schools be pushed back to 8:30 or later, writing, "Doing so will align school schedules to the biological sleep rhythms of adolescents, whose sleep-wake cycles begin to shift up to two hours later at the start of puberty."

The report indicated the ideal amount of sleep for adolescents is between 8.5 and 9.5 hours a night, and that 59 percent of 6th through 8th graders and 87 percent of high school students in the U.S. don't get enough.

Find out more with this Newsy video.