Almost everyone knows that inactive people gain weight faster than people who live active lifestyles. However, even if you lead an active lifestyle now, what you did as a child may still come back to haunt you.
In a recent issue of the medical journal, Lancet, researchers revealed the results of a long-term study. The study looked at how the activity levels of female children could affect their likelihood to gain weight when they matured. Following over 2,200 children from ages nine to 10, the study monitored how much activity they got every week. Up until the study participants turned 18 or 19 years old, they were checked with a skin-fold test and a BMI reading every year.
What researchers found was that as activity levels decreased, the BMI and skin folds increased. In fact, those who had been inactive ended up weighing between 4.6 and 6.5 pounds more than those who stayed active did. The important thing to note is that while this may seem to be a small difference, when children first turn 18 or 19, they still have fairly high metabolism rates, so adding on any weight is significant.
As people age, their metabolisms decrease and the pounds start piling on. So, six pounds at age 19 could mean that by the time a person turns 40, the amount will turn into 30 pounds. That’s why it is increasingly important that children become more active.
As people get older, two things happen. First, people get set in their ways, so it is harder to encourage them to exercise and be active. Second, it becomes more of a challenge to remove pounds once they get older and their metabolism is slower. While this does not mean that people who got a late start at active living should just call it quits, it does mean that kids should be encouraged to live healthier lifestyles so that they can avoid the pitfalls of obesity.
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Tags: exercise, obesity
