|
|
Volume 2, Issue 2
School helps kids stay slim
More adolescents are undergoing surgery to treat obesity
Exercise helps build new brain cells
Low-impact exercise helps prevent incontinence
Mother's weight and fitness impacts babies weight
School helps kids stay slim
New research recently published in the American Journal of Public Health indicates that school not only educates kids on reading, writing and arithmetic, it also helps to keep them slim. While kids used to spend their summer running around outside, that's just not the case anymore. Instead, kids are more prone to gain weight while on summer vacation.
Researchers studied over 5,300 kindergarteners and first graders for a period of two years. They found that the children gained weight at a significantly faster rate-double that of the rest of the year-in the summer months. Most likely, it is the controlled environment at school that prevents the children from gaining weight throughout the school year.
1
More adolescents are undergoing surgery to treat obesity
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 17 percent of teens aged 12-19 are overweight and obesity, which is triple the rate of 30 years ago. That said, it is not surprising to learn that obesity surgeries have become more commonplace in the United States among teens as well as adults.
While teens currently represent less than one percent of all bariatric surgeries-a procedure that reduced the size of the stomach-this number has tripled is just three years. The success rate among teens tends to be high, but experts caution that little is known about the long-term effects of the procedure. In addition, dramatic changes in diet and exercise must be made as well in order to ensure success.
2
Exercise helps build new brain cells
Exercise not only helps to builds muscle, it builds brain cells as well! New research conducted at Columbia University Medical Center indicates that bouts of aerobic exercise help build new brain cells in a region of the brain known to be affected in the age-related memory decline that begins around age 30 for most humans.
Researchers used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to study that the impact of the exercise. They found that exercise generated increased blood flow to the affected region, and the more fit the study participants got, the more blood flow the MRI detected. The increased blood flow helped to build new brain cells. 3
Low-impact exercise helps prevent incontinence
Urinary incontinence affects 13 million men and women in the United States. However, women experience incontinence twice as often as men due to pregnancy, menopause, and the structure of the female urinary tract. However, there is good news for women who have this condition-new research indicates that women who incorporate low impact exercise into their daily lives are significantly less likely to experience incontinence.
Among the 2,355 women aged 54 to 79 in the Harvard Medical School study, those who most active were 30 percent less likely to report incontinence than those who were least active. These results supports the theory that exercise helps prevent incontinence not by promoting weight loss, but by strengthening the pelvic floor muscles.
4
Mother's weight and fitness impacts babies weight
Most women know that while they are pregnant they should avoid certain foods and stay away from alcohol and caffeine, but new research indicates their level of exercise also impacts their baby.
The research shows that women who are lean and fit before and during pregnancy are more likely to have babies who are leaner. Conversely women who have a relatively high percentage of body fat tend to have fatter babies. Women who are less active were also more likely to have babies with a higher body fat percentage. Other studies have linked overly high birth weight to an increased risk of obesity later in life.
5
Sources
1American Journal of Public Health, March 2007
2Tsai WS, Inge TH, Burd RS. (2007). Bariatric surgery in adolescents: recent national trends in use and in-hospital outcome. Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, 161, 217-21.
3Pereira A, et al. (2007). An in vivo correlate of exercise-induced neurogenesis in the adult dentate gyrus. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104
4Danforth KN, Shah AD, Townsend MK, Lifford KL, Curhan GC, Resnick NM, Grodstein F. (2007). Physical activity and urinary incontinence among healthy, older women. Obstetrics and Gynecology, 109, 721-7.
5Harvey NC, Poole JR, Javaid MK, Dennison EM, Robinson S, Inskip HM, Godfrey KM, Cooper C, Sayer AA; SWS Study Group. (2007). Parental determinants of neonatal body composition. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 92, 523-6.
|
