Having a structured environment could benefit children’s health: Study

 

Having a structured environment could benefit children’s health: Study

According to new research from the University of Central Florida, having a structured environment, whether during school days or when stuck in quarantine as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, could benefit children’s health.

The findings of the study were published in the journal ‘Childhood Obesity.

In a study of more than 50 rural schoolchildren over the course of two weeks, researchers found that behaviors that lead to obesity — like too much sedentary behavior or screen time — dropped on school days compared to non-school days, while amounts of activity increased.
The findings are important because more than 20 percent of US children ages 6 to 11 are obese, which could lead to problems such as type 2 diabetes or other diseases, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The researchers focused on rural children because they are at increased risk for obesity compared to their urban-dwelling counterparts.
Additionally, rural children’s obesogenic behaviors have not been studied as much, said Keith Brazendale, an assistant professor in UCF’s Department of Health Sciences and the study’s lead author.

These behaviors can include low physical activity, poor diets, irregular sleep, and excess screen and media time.

The researchers used wristband accelerometers to compare the students’ physical activity and sleep on school and non-school days in addition to diaries of daily activities, diet, and screen time that were recorded by the parents.
They found that children accumulated an average of 16 additional minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day on school days compared to non-school days.
Furthermore, students reduced their average daily sedentary time by about an hour each day and their screen time by about an hour and a half each day on school days compared to non-school days.
In a separate study of a sub-sample of the rural children, the researchers found that rural children exhibited accelerated weight gain during five months of home quarantine due to the closure of schools and community-operated programs.

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