BBC HEALTH NEWS FOR PARENTS
CHILDREN’S HEALTH
"8million children do not get enough exercise"
Up to eight million children are in danger of ill health because they do not have enough exercise, a disturbing survey reveals. They should be doing at least an hour a day – but too much homework and parents’ fears for safety are stopping them from playing outside. The survey, published by the Scout Association, warns that children’s health is being put at risk. They are more likely to be fat or suffer heart disease than if they exercise regularly, it says.
The government recommends that children should do at least one hour or more moderate physical activity on most days. But the survey of 2,000 children concludes that almost eight million aged between seven and 18 do not reach the target. The research, commissioned to coincide with the launch of the Scout Association’s Kids Outdoors campaign, also identified that more than 600,000 young people spend no time at all in outdoor physical activities outside of school. Chief Scout Peter Duncan said: 'The findings of this report should come with a national health warning.
"It's a fact that young people who spend more time outdoors are healthier that those who do not and at the moment the outlook is bleak. Our campaign is for all of the 14 million young people in the UK. It doesn’t matter who you are, but the message is simply to get out there and get involved in the adventure."
David Barker, of the British Heart Foundation, said: "With predictions that one in four children will be obese by 2050 it's essential that we get young people more active. Physical activity can help build a healthy heart, develop strong muscles and bones and may help reduce the risk of some chronic diseases."
Watching television and playing on the home computer remain the most popular leisure activities for children.
Children should do at least 90 minutes exercise a day, experts say.
The current UK guidelines recommend an hour of exercise - but a recent study found only one in 10 children of school age achieve that limit. Writing in the Lancet, they say children should up their activity levels in order to ward off heart disease and obesity. The Department of Health said it would consider whether its guidelines needed to be reviewed following the study. If current trends continue, half of all the children in England could be obese by 2010.
Sedentary Lifestyles
Among children, the rates of obesity have tripled during the last 20 years. One in 10 six-year-olds is obese.
"When you drive your child to the school gate in your Chelsea tractor you are not helping your child"
The authors of ther latest study stress that getting enough exercise is important not only to tackle the problem of childhood obesity, but also to prevent future generations dying prematurely from illnesses associated with sedentary lifestyles.
They looked at over 1,730 children aged nine or 15 years, from schools in Denmark, Estonia and Portugal. For each child they measured a combination of risk factors for cardiovascular disease, including blood pressure, weight and cholesterol, to calculate a combined risk factor score.
Over one weekend and two week days the children were asked to wear a monitor that measured how physically active they were. The researchers found that their risk score for cardiovascular disease decreased with increasing physical activity.
The lowest risk scores were found in the nine year olds who did 116 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity and the 15 year olds who did around 88 minutes daily. This would correspond to walking at a speed of around 4km/hr for 90 minutes.
Professor Lars Bo Anderson, from the Norwegian School of Sports Sciences in Oslo, and his team stress that the 90 minutes of daily excercise they are recommending for children would not have to be done in one chunk; it would be spaced over the day.
Little and Often
For example, a child could walk or cycle to and from school, run around at lunchtime and play sports in the evenings and at weekends. Neville Rigby of the International Obesity Task Force said children were being stifled from doing exercise. "When you drive your child to the school gate in your Chelsea tractor you are not helping your child. Most kids in a previous generation had to walk to school, cycle to school or catch a bus." Professor Chris Riddoch, head of the London Sports Institute at Middlesex University and one of the researchers who conducted the latest study, agreed saying "We have engineered a society that does not exercise - kids as well as adults."
He said children needed to be allowed and encouraged to be active at every opportunity. "Every little bit helps. If we are not successful then the next generation of adults will be less healthy than we are and we are no role model." He said much was being done to improve the situation but that unless things changed the NHS would crumble under the strain of treating escalating ill health.
Concerted Effort
A spokeswoman from the Department of Health said policy makers would consider the implications of the new findings "very carefully in the context of our efforts to halt the rise in obesity among children under 11 by 2010." "It is important that we keep our recommendations under review as evidence like this comes to light," she added. She said there were a number of schemes working to increase physical activity among young people, including issuing schoolchildren with pedometers - devices that measure how many steps someone takes.
The government also wants all school pupils to receive two hours of PE and sport a day by 2010. Steve Shaffelburg of the British Heart Foundation said: "For children to develop a lifelong healthy attitude to physical activity, it will take a concerted effort from many groups working together to find long-lasting solutions."
Indoor Swimming Pool Use Link to Asthma!
New studies show that children who use an indoor swimming pool may be at increased risk of asthma, research suggests.
The researchers believe the key is exposure to chlorine, which is used a lot to clean indoor pools. The study, by the Catholic University of Louvain, appears in Occupational and Environmental Medicine. The researchers say the long-term effects of chlorine by-products on childrens' respiratory health should be thoroughly evaluated, and that pools should be properly ventilated and levels of chlorine by-products regulated.
A study published three years ago by the same team produced evidence that chlorine in pools can react with sweat or urine to create harmful fumes which can damage lungs. In the latest study, they analysed the rates of wheezing, asthma, hay fever, allergic rhinitis and atopic eczema, reported in a study of almost 190,000 children from 21 countries across the world.
Play Sport use arguably the finest OUTDOOR swimming pool in Hong Kong for all their swimming lessons.
Classes are held midweek and on weekends at the Stanley Ho Sports Centre, Pokfulam.
LET THEM GO OUT TO PLAY
KEEPING CHILDREN INDOORS IS BLIGHTING THEIR LIVES, PROTECTIVE PARENTS WARNED
Over-protective parents are warned today that they are denying youngsters a proper childhood by keeping them indoors playing video games instead of letting them out-side to play.
A group of almost 300 teachers, psychologists, authors and childcare experts claim the loss of unstructured play is threatening the health and well being of a generation.They say that loosely supervised fun is crucial for keeping children active, teaching them to deal with risk and learn to get on with others.
But parental anxiety over 'stranger danger' is conspiring with high volumes of traffic, aggressive marketing of commercialized toys and screen entertainment to rob children of opportunities to enjoy traditional play. The warning comes in an open letter signed by, among others, children's author Philip Pullman, childcare expert Dr Penelope Leach and Baroness Susan Greenfield, director of the Royal Institution.
The signatories also include 60 psychologists and psychotherapists, more than 40 university professors, plus leaders of teaching unions and children's charities. A similar letter a year ago voiced fears that childhood was being 'poisoned' by a damaging mix of junk food, all day TV and violent computer games. That warning, backed by the Archbishop of Canterbury sparked a national inquiry on the state of childhood which is due to report next year.
In the latest letter, experts warn that the loss of opportunities for play is a major factor in the rise of mental health and behavioral problems sin recent years. They say research has deepened concern that youngsters are facing a mental health crisis. They point to the finding by Unicef that Britain's children are among the unhappiest in the developed world, adding: "We believe that a key factor in this disturbing trend is the marked decline over the last 15 years in children's play."
The letter goes on to insist that play, particularly outdoors, is vital to children's all-round health and well-being. The letter was organized by writer Sue Palmer, whose book Toxic Childhood sparked a national debate on the issue, and Dr Richard House, a senior lecturer in psychotherapy at Roehampton University. 'Real play – socially interactive, first-hand, loosely supervised – has always been a vital part of children's development, and its loss could have serious implications,' they said. 'Just as the epidemic of childhood obesity recently took the developed world by surprise, too much "junk play" could – like too much junk food – have alarming implications for the next generation.
'We hope this letter helps draw attention to the importance of giving the next generation time, space and encouragement to go "out to play".'
Mrs. Palmer added: 'We have become over protective in certain ways and letting go is one of the hardest things.
'But there is a limit to the extent we can protect children physically – they have to become capable of protecting themselves as well.'