Going to school walking or playing sports prevents adolescent obesity, those who do it are 33% less likely to gain weight.
One team found that of more than 1,700 teens who participated in at least two sports teams in the year, they were 22 percent less likely than the rest to be overweight or obese.
Those who walked or biked to school four or five times a week were 33 percent less likely to gain weight, the study noted.
These results will not surprise the majority of the population, said Dr. William Stratbucker, a pediatrician at the DeVos Children’s Hospital Healthy Weight Center, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
“It is information that many consumers will consider common sense. If a child is on sports teams, they will be less likely to be obese, “said Stratbucker, who was not involved in the study.
However, the authors claim that previous studies of different activities, including walking to school or playing sports, had yielded conflicting results.
The team studied a group of students and parents from the New Hampshire and Vermont public schools for seven years, beginning in 2002. They conducted telephone surveys and recorded various types of information, such as student activities, weight, and height.
The authors obtained these data when the 1,718 participating teens started high school. 29 percent were overweight or obese, according to Pediatrics.
The team then investigated which activities were least associated with the risk of gaining weight. Three out of four teens participated in a sports team, and the team found that those who played at least two sports per year were least likely to be obese.
40 percent of the 492 teens who didn’t participate in a team were overweight or obese, compared to 22 percent of the 927 who did at least two sports.
The study’s lead author, Keith Drake, of the Hood Center for Children and Families at Dartmouth Medical School, New Hampshire, found that participating in multiple sports teams helped much more than practicing a single sport because it keeps active teens year-round.
“It allows them to do moderate to intense physical activity,” Drake told Reuters Health.
Regarding going to school on foot or by bicycle, the team found that participants who did so more than three times a week were the least likely to be obese.