WHO Reports That Four Of Five Teenagers Worldwide Not Exercising Enough Especially Girls
The World Health Organization (WHO) released a report early today stating that four in five teenagers worldwide do not get enough physical activity, to the detriment of their health, warning that girls especially need more exercise. The advent of social media, internet apps and also gaming is all largely contributing to this disturbing trend which will have severe repercussions on their health in the future if not already.
The first ever report on global trends for teenage physical activity by the UN health agency stressed that urgent action was needed to get teens off their screens and moving more.
Dr Leanne Riley, co author of the study told
Thailand Medical News via a phone interview,"We absolutely need to do more or we will be looking at a very bleak health picture for these adolescents."
The findings of the study and report was published in the
Lancet Child & Adolescent Health journal, and is based on data from surveys conducted between 2001 and 2016 of some 1.6 million students between the ages of 11 and 17 across 146 countries.
The study found that 81 percent did not meet the WHO recommendation of at least an hour a day of physical activity such as walking, playing, riding a bike or taking part in organised sports.
This disturbing trend is detrimental to their future health, since regular physical activity provides a host of health benefits, from improved heart and respiratory fitness to better cognitive function, making learning easier.Exercise is also seen as an important tool in efforts to stem the global obesity epidemic.
Despite ambitious global targets for increasing physical activity, the study found virtually no change over the 15-year-period it covered.
Dr Riley added, "We are not seeing any improvements,and if fact the opposite is happening."
Although the report does not specifically study the reasons for teenage physical inactivity, she suggested that the "electronic revolution... seems to have changed teenagers' movement patterns and encourages them to sit more, to be less active."
The researchers also pointed to poor infrastructure and insecurity making it difficult for adolescents to walk or bike to school.
The research found that levels of physical inactivity among teenagers were persistently high across all regions and all countries, ranging from 66 percent in Bangladesh to 94 percent in South Korea.
Dr Regina Guthold, lead author also commented, "We find a high prevalence pretty much everywhere noting that in "many, many countries, between 80 and 90% of teenagers (are) not meeting the recommendations for physical activity."
The situation was particularly concerning for adolescent girls, with only 15 percent of them worldwide getting the prescribed amount of physical activity, compared to 22 percent for boys.In fact, girls were less active than boys in all but four countries ie Afghanistan, Samoa, Tonga and Zambia.
The situation for boys improved somewhat between 2001 and 2016, with inactivity levels dropping from 80 to 78 percent, but for girls, it remained at 85 percent.
In many countries, the gender gap appeared to be link
ed to cultural pressure on girls to stay home and shun sports, as well as concerns over safety when moving about outdoors.
Dr Guthold also pointed out that "a lot of physical activity promotion is more tailored towards boys."This, she said, seems to explain the fact that the biggest gender gap could be found in the United States and Ireland, where the difference in activity levels between boys and girls was over 15 percentage points.
Dr Guthold added, "In the United States, we see that since 2001, levels of insufficient activity have decreased in boys by seven percent, while there has been no change in girls."
America for instance put in place an ambitious national plan for physical activity in 2010, but the efforts "for some reason only seem to reach boys."In a bid to encourage healthier living, countries have set a target of reducing physical inactivity among adults and youth alike by 15 percent between 2018 and 2030.
Dr Riley noted that meeting that target would be a challenge after driving down teenage inactivity by a mere percentage point over the past 15 years."We need to do more if we want to halt the rise in obesity in this age group and promote better levels of physical activity," she said.
Its also interesting to note the correlation between the same period of the study and the rise of medical diseases and conditions in the same group of teenagers especially obesity,
diabetes and even caridovascular issues and also cancer that is not appearing more and more in the younger generations.
