Physically Fit Kids Stay Physically Healthy

Kids who are less physically active and have excess body fat have more sick days, new research reports.

These findings suggest that eating right and getting exercise affect more than just kids' waistlines, study author Dr. Panagiota Klentrou stated.

She and her colleagues found that fifth graders who were physically fit and spent more time participating in sports activities reported fewer days of cold or flu symptoms than inactive kids did.

In contrast, kids who had more than 25 percent body fat reported more sick days than kids carrying around less extra fat.

Klentrou, who is based at Brock University in Ontario, Canada, said she hopes these results provide parents with an additional incentive to encourage good habits in their kids.

Although being overweight and inactive may often seem harmless in kids, those habits can affect how much time they spend at school, Klentrou said. Slim and active kids "will lose less school, because they are going to be healthier," she said.

During the study, published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, Klentrou and her colleagues asked 29 boys and 32 girls between the ages of 10 and 11 how often they exercised, tested their body fat, and gave them logs to record how many days per month they spent with cold and flu symptoms. Children also completed running tests to measure their physical fitness.

In an interview, Klentrou explained that exercise may keep kids healthy by providing a constant source of moderate stress, strengthening their body systems and enabling them to ward off bacteria and viruses. "If you don't challenge the systems, they get sloppy," she said.

Excess body fat, in contrast, may weaken the body because fat requires resources that get diverted from the body's infection fighting machinery, she noted.

Based on the results, Klentrou recommends that parents try to encourage kids to be active every day, eat a healthy diet, and lose weight if they are obese.

SOURCE: Journal of Applied Physiology, December 2003.

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