Health Choices

Chiropractor in Santa Barbara

On occasion, it can feel exhausting attempting to keep up with a five-year-old. If you’ve been around an active child of this age, or if you have one of your own, you may have found yourself hoping that the kid would just sit still for a minute or two. But, new research is affirming the long-term health benefits of this whirlwind of activity.

In fact, according to a new University of Iowa study, rather than making an effort to slow these little ones down, five-year-olds ought be encouraged to be as active as possible. Why? “Because it pays off as they grow older,” said Kathleen Janz, lead author of the study and professor of health and sport studies in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Even if kids don’t remain as active later in childhood, being active at age five helps them to avoid excess fat as they get older. “We call this effect ‘banking’ because the kids benefit later on, similar to having a savings account at a bank. The protective effect is independent of what happens in between,” Janz went on to say.

Using a special scanner that accurately measures bone, fat, and muscle tissue, and an accelerometer that measures movement every minute, the UI team tested the body fat and activity level of 333 kids at ages five, eight, and eleven. Rather than depending on kids or parents to track minutes of exercise, the kids wore accelerometers to record their activity level for up to five days.

The study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, indicates that kids who are active at age five end up with less fat at age eight and eleven, even when controlling for their accumulated level of activity.  The average five-year-old in the study got thirty minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise per day. For every ten minutes on top of that, kids had one-third of a pound less fat tissue at ages eight and eleven.

Although further investigation is required to discover what happens to the active kids’ bodies that keeps them in better shape down the road, Janz said that it may be possible that the active 5-year-olds didn’t develop as many fat cells, improved their insulin response, or that something happened metabolically that offered some protection even as they became less active.

Nonetheless, as appealing as this study is, weight moderation is not the only benefit of early exercise. As a Costa Mesa chiropractor I have observed in my own practice that active kids have far less of the usual childhood health problems, such as catching colds and the flu. Chiropractic treatment is, of course, extraordinarily beneficial in helping kids to stay healthier. But, in addition, the stimulation to the brain that happens during activities, especially those that require “cross pattern” motor movements of the larger muscles, i.e., right hand/left leg and left hand/right leg, such as crawling, running, climbing, and skipping, also boosts the autoimmune system and keeps kids healthier.

Many children these days are overweight and unhealthy. Though part of the problem is an unhealthy diet, inactivity is also a major contributing factor. If you have a five-year-old who chooses to watch television or play video games rather than to participate in more active play, help your child to get up and get moving into healthier activities. Moderate to vigorous exercise will not only benefit your child now, but will help to build a healthier future. You can bank on it!