Kids’ exercise guidelines need more focus on brain development

 

Posted on February 4, 2015 by Stone Hearth News

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(Reuters Health) – – Sports medicine experts say physical activity guidelines for kids should address the best types of exercise, not just the duration.
Most guidelines – including those of the World Health Organization and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – recommend that kids and teens get 60 minutes each day of moderate to vigorous exercise. Many don’t specify what kind, but imply that aerobics should be the focus, with additional “strength training” three times per week.

  

The current emphasis on exercise quantity limits considerations of quality, the authors write in a review article in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
“These data were developed in the 1950s primarily for adults,” said lead author Dr. Gregory D. Myer of the Division of Sports Medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
An hour of aerobic exercise may promote aerobic fitness and muscle strength, but not necessarily motor skill development, socialization or having fun, the authors write.

  

“Kids don’t ask to go run two miles, they don’t enjoy it,” Myer told Reuters Health.
The preadolescent period is the time when developing brains can best learn and reinforce motor skill control, which will make physical fitness more sustainable later in life, the authors write. More