Mobile UPI  |   About UPI  |   UPI en Español  |   UPI Arabic  |   UPIU  |   My Account
Search:
Go

Students no more fit despite more gym

|
|
 
  
Published: May 8, 2009 at 12:55 PM

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, May 8 (UPI) -- Scheduling more physical education time in school does not mean children will become more fit, say researchers in Britain.

The researchers, who presented their findings at the European Congress on Obesity in Amsterdam, said students who got more exercise at school compensated by doing less at home, and those who got little gym at school made up for it by being more active at home.

Alissa Fremeaux, a biostatistician at Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry in Plymouth, England, and colleagues studied 206 children from three primary schools with widely different amounts of scheduled physical education.

Children attending one school got on average 9.2 hours a week of scheduled physical education; children at the second school got 2.4 hours a week and those at the third had 1.7 hours in a week.

The researchers had the students wear accelerometers, which record time, duration and intensity of activity.

The study found that although the children attending the school with many hours of physical education had 40 percent more activity during school hours than the other children, their total weekly activity was no different from the others.

© 2009 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
  
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
The Chicago Auto Show The making of the Oscars Mercedes-Benz fashion week In New York
The Tibetan Moniam Festival in China The White House Science Fair Super Bowl XLVI ticker tape victory parade
Additional Health News Stories
1 of 19
Tiger Woods plays Spyglass Hill in the AT&T Pro-Am in Pebble Beach, California
View Caption
fark
Remember the WMDs that were spirited out of Iraq and into Syria?
National Geographic misrepresented 'Doomsday Prepper' Megan Hurwitt. Producer even offered her $1,000...
Saudi Arabia would like you all to know that if Iran tests a nuke, they want one too...and they...
More than $500,000 rare jewels stolen in a jewelry store heist. It involved burrowing through a...
What is your favorite euphemism for the deed? Subby likes 'bumping uglies'
Worker Pepper Sprayed In Buffalo Wild Wings Robbery. Victim quoted as saying "OW OW OW"