According to a new study, kids are lacking in the seven minutes of vigorous physical activity that's essential to keep their body fit and in good health.
According to University of Alberta medical researchers and their colleagues across Canada, children need at least seven minutes of vigorous physical activity a day to keep their body fit and in good health. However the study found most are not getting it.
"If you watch late-night television, or look in the backs of magazines, you'll see magical ads saying you need just 10 minutes a day or five minutes a day of exercise to stay fit. And for those of us in the medical field, we just rolled our eyes at that. But surprisingly, they may actually be right and that's what this research shows," said co-principal investigator Richard Lewanczuk, a researcher with the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at the U of A. "Our research showed children don't need a lot of intense physical activity to get the health benefits of exercise - seven minutes or more of vigorous physical activity was all that was required. But the seven minutes had to be intense to prevent weight gain, obesity and its adverse health consequences. And most kids weren't getting that."
These seven minutes of physical activity a day keeps the child from becoming obese and it was found that boys were less sedentary than girls.
"This research tells us that a brisk walk isn't good enough," said Lewanczuk, a professor in the Department of Medicine who has been studying this topic for eight years. "Kids have to get out and do a high-intensity activity in addition to maintaining a background of mild to moderate activity. There's a strong correlation between obesity, fitness and activity. Activity and fitness is linked to a reduction in obesity and good health outcomes.
"Getting young children to make vigorous physical activity part of their daily routines is important, especially considering activity levels in the teenage years drop right off," Lewanczuk said.
It was also found that children of the same age group were found to be more active in school than at home.
"Quite often the activity levels on evenings or weekends would be almost flat," he said. "We made the presumption that kids were just sitting in front of a screen the whole time."
Lewanczuk hopes that with this study and its findings, schools will realize the significance of physical activities and will make them mandatory.
