Physical activity study shows more kids growing into unhealthy adults
10:14 a.m. Wednesday, July 16, 2008
It's a sight that can be seen in almost every city on any given day: Kids on a walk. It's simple and healthy.
But now a worrying finding a new study shows kids as they grow cut back sharply on just this sort of exercise.
"What shocked me was the sharp decline in activity for six years," said UCSD Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics Dr. Phillip Nader.
Nader studied more than 1,000 kids. The study showed when they were 9 they got about three hours of exercise a day, things like riding bikes, playing tag or basketball. By the time they were 15, that activity had dropped to about 49 minutes.
The weekends were even worse. The study found kids got about 35 minutes a day.
"When I come home usually on the weekends I either like play my guitar or make music on the computer or just like play video games," 15-year-old Ryan Riparetti said.
What makes this study so compelling is "how" the kids' activities were tracked. For a full week at different ages they wore a device called an accelerometer to measure their activity.
The study also found no matter where the kids lived, what their family income was, or their race activity declined for all kids across the board.
"So we are really seeing kind of a culture, societal decline in activity with age," Nader said.
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