Forcing children to exercise more does not make them thinner: researchers

Eating less, not forcing children to do more exercise is the key to combating
the childhood obesity crisis, experts have said, as a study shows youngsters
compensate by becoming more idle at other times.

Extra exercise programmes will not reduce the childhood obesity crisis and policies should focus on what children eat instead, experts said.
Photo: ALAMY

A major review of research into childhood exercise programmes has found that enforcing extra activity on children does not affect how active they are overall, as they simply do less at other times of the day.

This means that extra exercise programmes will not reduce the childhood obesity crisis and policies should focus on what children eat instead, experts said.

People put on weight when they consume more calories than they use up so government policies have attempted to increase the amount of physical activity children do but studies have shown this does not affect their weight.

Researchers at Plymouth University examined 30 experiments conducted on more than 14,000 children and found that even the most rigorous and costly exercise programme, involving 90 minutes of high intensity exercise three times a week, only increased the amount of walking or running completed in 24 hours by five minutes.

Currently, PE is compulsory in state schools but teachers are not required to provide a set amount of physical activity in the timetable.

Government recommendations are that all children over the age of two should be physically active for 60 minutes a day.

Under the previous Government, all children of compulsory school age were expected to take part in two hours of sport a week.

But as part of a new school sport strategy published in late 2010, the Coalition axed the last Government’s targets, claiming they led to a decline in the number of children taking part in traditionally competitive sports such as rugby union, netball and hockey. A sports census completed by schools every year was also scrapped.

Brad Metcalf, research fellow and statistician at Plymouth University and lead author wrote in the BMJ: "However counterintuitive or discomforting it may be, strong evidence from this review shows that physical activity interventions have little effect on the overall activity of children.

"Organised physical activity may nevertheless still offer benefits such as improved co-ordination skills, greater self confidence, team participation, and social inclusivity."

Co-author Prof Terence Wilkin, professor of endocrinology and metabolism at the university, said: "Childhood obesity has come from somewhere and must return the same way if diabetes and cardiovascular disease are to be contained.

"We all believe that weight gain results from an imbalance between calories earned and calories spent.

"If it is not possible to influence the calories spent by children through their physical activity, the cause – and the cure – of childhood obesity must arguably lie with calories consumed."