Children Engage In Less Physical Activity As They Reach Adolescence

Virtually meaningless.

"A progressive decline in levels of physical activity has been documented in children, with less than one third able to meet the recommended physical activity guidelines when they are 15 years old, according to an article released on July 15, 2008 in JAMA.

Physical activity has been associated with obesity and associated illnesses as well as chronic diseases among young people. Expert opinion corroborates studies in suggesting that children maintain a minimum of 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) each day, but it has not been thoroughly examined how many youth actually meet this standard."

Note, no data to suggest that the alleged one-third who do not meet the criteria are the one-third of kids who are too fat.

Per the article, the recommended amount of daily exercise is 60 minutes.

What this research is saying is that by age 15 where daily exercise minutes were least, because of between 11 and 25 minutes or, on average, 15-minutes per day "too little exercise," we have an epidemic of childhood overweight/obesity.

"It was found that the average minutes of MVPA and the range of minutes spent engaging in MVPA decreased steadily as the children moved into adolescence. Beginning at 9 years, approximately 3 hours were spent in MVPA per day on both weekends and weekdays. Almost all children at this time met the recommended guidelines. However, by the age of 15, the adolescents were spending 49 minutes each weekday and 35 minutes each weekend day in this level of activity. Both the weekday and weekend MVPA thus showed significant decreases between these years, as they dropped 38 and 41 minutes per year respectively."

This is, in a word, insane.

Exercise is and always will be a terribly inefficient way to control weight.

These researchers are all wrong and, sadly, their valueless research will only serve to delay any problem-solving, not help.