Just 5 minutes of physical activity needed for kids to beat obesity
March 24, 2009
A new study says, to help prevent children of being victims of childhood obesity, just engaging them in five minutes of sustained physical activities is needed. According to researchers from Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, a small burst of physical exercise lasting 5 minutes or more may be better option than intermittent physical activity session lasting four minutes or even less.
Ian Janssen, lead author of the study, said:
“If two children accumulated 60 minutes of daily physical activity, the child who accumulated more activity in bouts is less likely to be obese than the one who accumulated more of their activity in a sporadic manner.”
According to the researchers’ findings, among those who moved the most throughout the day, 34 percent of the sporadically active were over weight or obese, compared with 25 per cent of the `bout` children.
Child psychologist Jocelyn Miller said:
“The benefits of daily activity increase the longer the activity is sustained. Since video games first arrived on the scene, many children don’t know how to play with toys, do pretend play or build things. If parents, teachers and policy makers believe kids are getting 60 minutes of continuous physical activity in a one-hour physical education class or activities like baseball practice, they are way off base. Children are often inactive during these periods.”
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