New research suggests childhood exercise has a protective effect on health in later years, as well as improving brain power – even in inactive grownups
Last week, Public Health England said 6 million middle-aged adults in England take less than 10 minutes’ brisk exercise a month, risking their health. But when does the problem start? It seems the answer is “very young”. Last year, a damning international study portrayed British children as among the least active in the world. Despite government guidelines urging parents to ensure their offspring do at least an hour of moderate-intensity exercise every day, compared with 38 other nations including Venezuela and Slovenia, England and Wales are currently third-worst in the list – with Scotland at the bottom. Only 22% of boys aged 11 to 15 manage the recommended amounts of daily exercise, and just 15% of girls.
But while active childhoods can have many obvious short-term benefits, including reducing the rates of obesity – the latest figures suggest that nearly 20% of 10- to 11-year-olds in England are obese – the little we know of the long-term benefits point towards exercise being even more crucial than we might already assume.
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