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Encourage Physical Activity among Children

by Anne Trueman on May 7 2013 11:17 AM
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Sedentary lifestyle is prone to cause adverse effects on cardiomatabolic health of children.

Scientists are of the opinion that the children should indulge in moderate physical exercise in order to reduce the incidence of diseases affecting heart and body metabolism. While examining the risk factors of cardiovascular ailments it was noted that screen time was worse than entire sedentary time.

A TEAM PRODIGY comprising of an Inter-university team of researchers from the University of Ottawa, University of Montreal, McGill University, and Laval University, researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) Research Institute evaluated the impact of time spent in sedentary behavior and time spent in MVPA (moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity) on the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases in kids.

Dr. Jean-Philippe Chaput, a researcher at the CHEO Research Institute and a cross-appointed professor at the University of Ottawa, said, “Although results in this study suggest that in children, time spent in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity appears more important than time spent in sedentary activities, with regard to cardiometabolic health, both increasing children's participation in physical activity AND reducing their screen-related sedentary time are important public health targets to achieve.”

The experts conducted a cross-sectional study involving 500 volunteers aged between 8 and 10 years. The waist circumference, fasting triglycerides, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, glucose concentrations and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels were recorded.

The scientists noticed that irrespective of sedentary time, higher levels of MVPA (moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity) were linked to fasting triglycerides and diastolic blood pressure, lower waist circumference and higher LDL cholesterol levels.

On the contrary sedentary time was positively related with diastolic blood pressure but by adjusting on MVPA, the relation became insignificant.

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The scientists observed 'Self-reported screen time was positively associated with waist circumference and negatively associated with HDL cholesterol independent of MVPA.'

Dr. Jean-Philippe Chaput concluded that the risk of cardiomatabolic diseases in children can be mitigated to a large extent by increasing physical activity instead of reducing the sitting time.

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Source-Medindia


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