(Relaxnews) – With results equivalent to just an extra four minutes walking or running per day, experts say that is clearly not enough to fend off soaring obesity rates.
Published in the British Medical Journal, the findings also showed that children who attended extra-curricular exercise clubs or PE classes did less activity at home afterwards.
Researchers from Plymouth University in the UK looked at 30 studies, involving more than 14,300 participants, that monitored activity levels of children under 16.
Brad Metcalf, lead author of the study, told the BBC that "extra-curricular PE lessons could often be far from energetic." He adds, "A PE lesson can be 10 minutes of running, 10 minutes of walking, and 20 minutes of standing in a queue waiting for your turn."
Also the BBC reports that kids may feel encouraged to snack more at home afterwards because they feel they have been more active, "or parents may decide not to take their children to the park because they believe they have already had their exercise for the day."
However new US research published this July in the journal Pediatrics finds that kids who play on several sports teams are nearly 40 percent less likely to be obese. "Team sport participation had the strongest and most consistent inverse association with weight status," wrote researchers from the Hood Center for Children and Families at Dartmouth in Lebanon, New Hampshire.
In addition, the researchers also found that teens who walked or biked to school more than three days a week had a 33 percent lower risk of obesity than those who took the bus or rode in a car.
The CDC in the US and NHS in the UK both recommend that school-aged children get at least 60 minutes of physical activity every day.
http://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e5888
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19743584