School-Based Physical Activity Interventions Ineffective for Childhood Obesity

Who could have seen this coming? Why, Fitness Watch readers, of course.

"School-based physical activity interventions to address obesity in children have no effect on body mass index (BMI) or other anthropometric measures of overweight or obesity, a systematic review of the literature concludes...

Meta-analysis of the data revealed that the difference between intervention groups and the control groups in mean change in BMI was −0.05 kg/m2 (95% confidence interval, −0.19 to 0.10), indicating that BMI is not affected by school-based physical activity intervention. There was also no consistent improvement in any other measures of body composition, such as body fat percentage, skin-fold thickness, lean mass, waist circumference, and waist-hip ratio."

In other words, school-based physical activity interventions don't do squat and are a waste of resources.

Which makes perfect sense, since exercise is a terribly inefficient way to lose weight, any weight loss effects of exercise (rare) are easily undone and parents are killing their children with Calories more quickly than exercise could ever overcome even under the most ideal of settings.

If anyone is serious about helping kids by saving them from their calorically irresponsible parents:

report fat kids to the authorities so they can be helped,

report docs and teachers who do not fulfill their responsibilities as mandatory reporters to the authorities and

stop paying for the diseases of choice that fat people get.