Big Way Of Life

It has frequently been said that children should be doing more PE in schools and now research has backed up those claims.

The study, conducted by experts in Switzerland and published in the British Medical Journal, compared children who had the standard legal requirement of physical education of 45 minutes a week with others who had five lessons a week plus extra short bursts of activity at home.

Over the nine month study, children who had the extra PE lessons were found to be fitter, improving in half of the main factors researcher looked at, and less likely to put on fat than those who only had the regular amount of lessons.

The children’s fitness was measured by a test of how long they could sprint for and it was found that those undertaking more exercise could sprint, on average, 20 seconds longer.

Doctors also measured the amount of fat under the children’s skin. Children doing the standard amount of PE put on an average of two millimetres of fat over the nine months, whereas those doing more PE put on an average of only half a millimetre.

Despite this, researchers also found that even though the children were having extra PE lessons at school it didn’t add up to any extra exercise overall. This was because those doing more at school compensated by doing less outside of school. However, the exercise done at school was deemed more vigorous, accounting for the improvement in their fitness levels.

It was also noted that the children’s quality of life was also not improved over the course of the research.

The study was carried out with 500 children in two age groups, 7 and 11 years.