Study: Physical Education Classes Need to Cut Time Spent Standing Around

Children's weight and blood pressure can be better controlled by increasing exercise time and cutting the time they stand around in physical education classes, according to researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

This is the first study to show that many physical education classes involved as few as six to ten minutes of vigorous exercise. Researchers tripled exercise time by substituting activities that kept the children in motion and not just watching others.

"Having children participate in vigorous exercise programs while simultaneously learning about the benefits of proper nutrition and exercise reduces their chances of ultimately developing type 2 diabetes and other health problems associated with inactivity and being overweight," said Dr. Robert G. McMurray, professor of exercise and sport science at UNC.

"As a group, active children of normal weight will live significantly longer, healthier and more satisfying lives. As a nation, we need to emphasize this much more since right now, we're doing an increasingly bad job of it," McMurray said.

Researchers studied 1,140 11 to 14-year-old middle school children, including 630 girls and 510 boys in four state school systems. They randomly assigned students to four treatment groups: added exercise only, education only, exercise and education combined and a control group, which received no extra interaction.

"We wanted to see whether we could modify the children's programs slightly, stay within the state-mandated curriculum and still make a difference in terms of their risk profiles," said McMurray. "Among the things we knew were that diets in central and eastern North Carolina -- like many parts of the country -- tend to be high in fat and that physical activity of rural children is less than that of children from urban areas."

All four groups grew normally in height and all four grew heavier over the two-month study period. Skin fold tests of the control group showed they put on three times as much body fat as the other children, according to the study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

Skin fold and blood pressure measurements for the children in the exercise-only group fell between the two extremes, reported McMurray. The education-only group did not differ significantly from the control group, showing that exercise was likely the most important component of the improved classes.

"With the blood pressure testing, we found drops in both systolic and diastolic pressures of four millimeters of mercury in the children who did more exercise and also learned about good nutrition," said McMurray. "Although that's not a big drop, it's pretty significant since it happened over only two months and with kids who were going through puberty. With both measures, we found more of a benefit than we expected."

"Schools are looking for ways to improve children's academic test scores, and many have either reduced or eliminated physical education," said McMurray. "Now physical education might not result in brighter kids, but it produce more productive adults who face fewer health threats and healthcare costs down the road."

Other sources: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill