Best Way To Fight Teen Obesity: More Sports

The best way to fight obesity in high school students is to increase opportunities for all teens, regardless of athletic ability, to participate in team sports and for more kids to bike and/or walk to school at least 4 times a week, say the authors of a groundbreaking new study in the journal Pediatrics.

A telephone survey of 1718 New Hampshire and Vermont high school students and their parents found that adolescents who played on 3 sports teams or more were 27% less likely to be overweight or obese and 39% less likely to be obese compared to adolescents who did not play on any sports teams. The survey also found that teens who walked or biked to school more than 3 and 1/2 days per week were 33% less likely to be obese compared to adolescents who never walked/biked to school.

The authors suggested that the prevalence of overweight/obesity would decrease by 10.6% from 28.8% to 25.7% and the prevalence of obesity would decrease by 26.1% if all adolescents played at least 2 team sports per year, and that obesity rates would decrease by 22.1% to 10.0% if all adolescents walked/biked to school at least 4 days per week throughout the school year.

Read the full post here.