These days, with so much pressure of parenting and children spending time in traffic jams to and from school, and schools and residential areas with hardly any playgrounds, it is not surprising to find children who don’t get adequate play time.
An interesting new study released in Canada found that children who spent most of their after-school time outside were three times as likely to meet guidelines for daily physical activity and were in better shape than those who spent all of their after-school time indoors.
Lee Schaefer from the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, and his colleagues studied 306 urban youths between nine and 17 years old.
Children who reported being outside during most or all of their after-school hours got almost 20 more minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise per day compared with those who spent most or all of their time indoors.
That was after taking into account children’s age, sex and weight and the time of year. “It’s important for students to be outside because when they’re in outdoor spaces, they’re more active,” Schaefer said.
“What’s really important about the study is not just that kids are moving more, but they’re moving more in a moderate-to-vigorous way.”
It is recommended that a child should get at least one hour of moderate-to-vigorous exercise every day.
Low levels of exercise among children has been attributed to a variety of factors, including the pervasiveness of video games and computers as well as changes in the environment, which includes the shortage of parks and other green spaces.
Increasingly stringent academic demands have led to less outdoor play time at school, leaving children even more deficient in that area.
Given how much time children spend in school, school wellness policies should include increasing outdoor activity.
Photo: behealthy.baystatebanner.com