The right age to give a kid a phone remains a hotly contested debate, but a new study is making the case for a specific milestone age as risky for a child to get a phone.

The recent study, published in the journal Pediatrics, examined data from more than 10,500 children to determine how the age of smartphone acquisition was associated with health outcomes at age 12. The researchers found that children who had a smartphone by age 12 had a higher risk of depression, obesity and poor sleep than those who did not yet have one. The health risks of obesity and sleep problems were worse for children whose parents gave them a phone sooner than 12.

“For me, this paper and the findings do support delaying [giving the kid a smartphone] a little bit until older than 12,” said Dr. Ran Barzilay, lead author of the study, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania.

Barzilay noted that his findings are broadly on a........

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