Turning off the box a good start for healthy kids

South Australian researchers have found that just 23 per cent of SA children are meeting the recommended daily activity requirements on any given day, as outlined in the Australian Government’s new physical activity guidelines.

And UniSA’s Dr Tim Olds reveals in the new study that only three per cent of kids between 10 and 15-years-old are meeting the activity guidelines each and every day.

The research project undertaken by Dr Olds and colleague, Kate Ridley, from Flinders University, underlines that there is an emerging consensus that long hours of screen time may be a factor in declining fitness and increased fatness in children.

“What the research clearly points to is that children in this vulnerable age bracket, where we have found there is a drop off in physical activity, are not meeting the physical activity recommendations,” Dr Olds said.

“While only some boys and girls are not spending the minimum 60 minutes a day engaged in vigorous activity, many are spending well beyond the two hour maximum watching TV or involved in other sedentary IT focused activities such as computer games or Internet based pastimes.”

Dr Olds says the results of the activity survey of 4306 South Australian children aged between 10 and 15 showed that boys were less likely to meet the Government guidelines for a range of reasons.

“While we have found that boys on the whole are more active than girls, they are also more likely to engage in more screen time. Active boys don’t necessarily watch less TV. Many of the boys in the study who had high screen time were actually cutting back on sleep – so they stay up late on the computer or watching TV. And it is important to note that reduced quality and quantity of sleep has been associated with a range of physical and psychosocial disturbances in children including lower IQ and diminished success at school.

“There are a great many variables that impact on activity ranging from the child’s sex, whether they have brothers and sisters, and what sort of school they attend, but boys in poorer or marginalised circumstances are much less likely to meet the targets.”

Dr Olds said the Australian Government guidelines were a great starting point but may need to be adjusted as more research comes to hand, to support even better health outcomes for children.

“Generally speaking it seems the 60 minute requirement for vigorous activity is regularly met, especially on school days,” he said.

“What is emerging as a key factor is the amount of time children spend watching TV or other screen based activities which tends to be fairly high and to rise on weekends. We may never get below the two-hour limit but we can do things to discourage too much TV watching and computer use.

“Children should not have a TV in their bedroom. In households where there are rules surrounding the time and content of TV watching or internet and video game use we find better outcomes. And we know that in some households the TV is never turned off. Breaking that habit is also a good start.

“In the longer term it may be that we need to be setting higher targets for daily activity and more realistic targets about screen time.”