Vigorous exercise may be an especially good way to keep kids lean, but sitting around, in and of itself, doesn’t appear to have a major role in making them fat, new research shows.

Nevertheless, there are still plenty of reasons to avoid too much sedentary “screen time,” Dr. Ulf Ekelund of the MRC Epidemiology Unit in Cambridge, UK and colleagues say, given potential negatives including “violence and aggressive behavior, poor academic performance, and poor body image.” Read the rest of this entry »

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has released new recommendations of physical activity necessary to promote health benefits. With the new guidelines nobody is exempt, not kids, older adults, or adults with disabilities. Previous recommendations were for healthy adults to have 30 minutes daily of moderate activity.

It is now recommended that adults should do at least 2.5 hours a week of moderately intense physical activity such as brisk walking, or 1 hour and 15 minutes of vigorously intense jogging, swimming laps or other aerobic activities. A combination of the two types of exercise many bring about the same results, but the exercise must be in sessions that are at least 10 minutes long to raise the heart beat enough to provide benefits. Read the rest of this entry »