"New research is charting the roots of the nation's obesity epidemic: Between the ages of 9 and 15, kids' daily physical activity drops from an average of three hours to less than one...
Most research studies that track kids' physical activity rely on surveys and reports by the kids themselves, which, as any parent knows, can be rather inaccurate. Nader did it differently. He and his fellow researchers put an accelerometer -- a device that measures physical movement -- on a total of about 1,000 kids in 10 different cities...
The younger they were, the more active they were. Nine-year-olds logged an average of three hours a day of moderate to vigorous activity. By age 12 that had dropped to about an hour and a half on weekdays and 83 minutes on weekends.
By age 15 it was down to 49 minutes during the week and 35 minutes on the weekends..."
(Note that this wasn't a measurement of vigorous activity - it was a measurement of ANY activity, including simple walking.)
No comments:
Post a Comment