The children’s condition is improving, but they are still not as fit as their parents

Physical fitness is important for success in sports and athletics, but it is also important for good health. If you are generally fit, you likely have a strong heart, brain, muscles and bones, which helps you exercise and improve your chances of living a long, fit and healthy life.

The most important type of exercise for good health is aerobic fitnessthat is, the ability to perform physical exercise or activity at a steady pace for an extended period of time (say over 20 minutes), for example running, walking, cycling, swimming, rowing, or playing an aerobic sport such as soccer or basketball.

Monitoring national and international trends in children’s aerobic fitness is important to understand trends in the current and potential future health of the population. Research shows that if you are in good aerobic condition as an adult, your risk of getting sick or dying from chronic diseases such as: heart disease, impact AND some cancers. And if you were fit as a child, you’re more likely to be: fit and healthy as an adult.

Take a moment to think about your own fitness level. Do you think you were as fit as today’s kids when you were their age?

This has been the subject of much discussion in recent decades. Most people say that children’s physical fitness has deteriorated, some say it has not changed at all, and few are willing to say that it has improved.

To help settle this debate, our research team has spent the last two decades collecting historical data on the health of millions of children around the world.

Improvement in some children

We systematically analyzed decades of data from hundreds of studies conducted in many different countries to compare the aerobic fitness of children of the same age and sex, as measured by the same fitness tests.

In 2003 our research was the first to conclusively show that children’s aerobic fitness actually declined worldwide in the late 20th century. IN our very large study Using 25 million children aged 6 to 19 from 27 countries, we showed that aerobic fitness declined worldwide between 1970 and 2000, with children in 2000 being about 15 percent less fit than their parents when they were children.

However, there is some good news suggesting that children’s fitness levels may no longer be declining. We recently published update to our 2003 study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in which we examined trends in the aerobic fitness levels of 1 million children aged 9 to 17 from 19 high-income countries (such as Australia, Canada, the United States, etc.) and higher in middle-income countries (such as Brazil and South Africa) from 1981 to 2014. We measured aerobic fitness using the 20-meter shuttle run, also called the beep test or the PACER Test.

The Sound Test is the world’s most popular field test of aerobic fitness for children. This is a progressive exercise test that involves running continuously between two lines 20 meters (66 feet) apart in time to a recorded audio signal. The time between the beeps gradually shortens and the test ends when you can no longer run 20 meters before the beep.

Our updated study confirmed that aerobic fitness levels in children did in fact decline in the 1980s and 1990s, but interestingly the decline appears to have slowed since 2000, with fitness levels remaining stable. over the last decade.

Although fitness trends varied by country, most showed an overall decline. However, after 2000, aerobic fitness improved in Brazil and Japan; plateau in Australia, Canada, Greece, South Africa and Spain; and fell in Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States. Children today are still less fit than their parents were when they were children, but the difference is half as much as previously thought – it is now about 7 percent.

What is the reason?

We examined links between trends in aerobic fitness and trends in broad socioeconomic and health factors in each country, including income inequality, levels of physical activity, and levels of overweight and obesity.

The strongest indicator of a country’s level of adaptation was the gap between rich and poor, measured using the tool: Gini index. Between 2000 and 2014, countries with a growing gap between rich and poor experienced the greatest declines in aerobic fitness.

In countries with a growing gap between rich and poor, the number of poor people increases. Poverty is linked to poor social and health outcomes in high- and upper-middle-income countries, known as social determinants of health. An indirect effect of poverty may be a lack of opportunity, time and resources to be physically active and participate in activities that improve or maintain an individual’s level of aerobic fitness.

Assuming that this relationship is causal, policies to eliminate income inequality and building on improvements in the social determinants of health in individual countries could lead to improvements in aerobic fitness levels, not only to halt the decline in fitness, but also to reverse the trend for good in people of all ages.