In what could be a breakthrough study, British researchers have concluded that children are overweight because they overeat, not because they don't get enough exercise. Once children are overweight, they will tend to exercise less. The conclusion of the research is that overeating causes overweight and lack of exercise follows once a child is too heavy.
The study has implications for public policy, because the British government has been increasing the number of minutes students have for physical education.
"More activity does not lead to weight loss," said Professor Terence Wilkin, one of the authors of the study.
Dr. Wilkin and his colleagues at Peninsula Medical School in Plymouth tracked 200 children from age seven to ten years old. The children wore devices to measure their physical activity. If a child was 10% fatter than average at age seven, he reduced his physical activity by an average four minutes a day by age ten.
"Our findings suggest that rather than giving children ever increasing doses of physical activity, we should first question the basic paradigm that more physical activity leads to less fat," according to the study published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.
Labels: overeating, causes of childhood obesity, exercise
Posted By: Jane St. Clair
