(Clockwise from back left) Research collaborators Brian Torrance, Paul Wozny and Richard Lewanczuk, and young students Kayli Kvarnbergthree, Sam Dargis and Aphia Ward, share results from a study showing that seven minutes a day of vigorous physical activity can keep kids fit and healthy.
Children need a minimum of seven minutes a day of vigorous physical activity, according to recently published findings by University of Alberta medical researchers and their colleagues across Canada. "If you watch late-night television or look in the backs of magazines, you'll see magical ads saying you need just five or 10 minutes a day of exercise to stay fit. For those of us in the medical field, we just roll our eyes at that. But surprisingly, they may actually be right, and that's what this research shows," says co-principal investigator Richard Lewanczuk , a researcher with the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at the U of A. "Our research showed children don't need a lot of intense physical activity to get the health benefits of exercise—seven minutes or more of vigorous physical activity was all that was required. But the seven minutes had to be intense to prevent weight gain, obesity and its adverse health consequences. And most kids weren't getting that." Lewanczuk worked on the study with Jonathan McGavock, his co-principal investigator and former post-doctoral fellow, who now works with the Manitoba Institute of Child Health. They collaborated with Black Gold Regional Schools in Leduc and surrounding communities just south of Edmonton, as well as researchers from the University of Manitoba, Queen's University, the University of Newcastle, and U of A researchers in medicine and dentistry; public health; physical education and recreation; and agricultural, life and environmental sciences.
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