Barely 3% Of 11 Year Olds In UK Do Enough Exercise

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Main Category: Sports Medicine / Fitness
Also Included In: Pediatrics / Children's Health;  Obesity / Weight Loss / Fitness;  Diabetes
Article Date: 13 Sep 2007 - 0:00 PDT

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Barely 3% of UK children aged 11 are doing enough exercise, when they should be spending at least one hour a day doing some form of physical activity if they want to minimize their chances of developing diabetes type 2 or becoming obese later on in life, says an article published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood (BMJ).

In this study, involving 5,500 11 year-old kids in South West England, the researchers monitored them for seven consecutive days on several occasions during the period January 2003 to January 2005. This was part of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) - it regularly followed up on the health of over 14,000 kids since birth.

Each child had to wear a plastic belt which held an accelerometer. This is special piece of equipment which records the intensity and frequency of physical activity, minute-by-minute.

The scientists' aim was to focus on the total level of physical activity, as well as to find out how much moderate to vigorous exercise the kids did daily.

Even though the data showed that these children were twice as physically active as adults, they were still nowhere near active enough for their age. The authors wrote that boys were more physically active than girls. They also found that boys were more likely than girls to take part in moderate to vigorous forms of activity.

40% of the boys averaged at least one bout of moderate/vigorous activity per day, compared to 22% of the girls. Both the boys and the girls seemed to spend the majority of their day engaged in light activities. Not even 1% of the kids averaged one 20 minute bout a day or more, said the researchers.

Slightly more than 5% of the boys and 0.4% of the girls managed to regularly do the recommended amount of recommended moderate/vigorous physical activity per day, i.e. the average across both sexes for 11 year olds was less than 3%.

The authors wrote "It is a sobering thought that children's activity levels actually peak at around this age and decline precipitously during adolescence."

"Objective measurement of levels and patterns of physical activity"
Chris J Riddoch, Calum Mattocks, Kevin Deere, Jo Saunders, Jo Kirkby, Kate Tilling, Sam D Leary, Steven N Blair, Andy R Ness
Online First Arch Dis Child 2007; doi: 10.1136/adc.2006.112136
http://adc.bmj.com

Written by: Christian Nordqvist
Copyright: Medical News Today
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