Recent studies have found correlations between children�s aerobic fitness and their brain structure. SummaryAreas of brain devoted to thinking, learning being generally larger among youngsters who are more fit... Related Articles2.66 lakh people unemployed in DelhiMost detailed exoplanet weather map ever developedHope investors will choose robust EMEs like India: Raghuram RajanIn Maharashtra, Narendra Modi's strategy: be more Marathi than the Marathis Encourage young boys and girls to run, jump, squeal, hop and chase after each other or after erratically kicked balls, and you substantially improve their ability to think, according to the most ambitious study ever conducted of physical activity and cognitive performance in children.
The results underscore, yet again, the importance of physical activity for children�s brain health and development, especially in terms of the particular thinking skills that most affect academic performance.
The news that children think better if they move is hardly new. Recent studies have shown that children�s scores on math and reading tests rise if they go for a walk beforehand, even if the children are overweight and unfit. Other studies have found correlations between children�s aerobic fitness and their brain structure, with areas of the brain devoted to thinking and learning being generally larger among youngsters who are more fit.
But these studies were short-term or associational, meaning that they could not tease out whether fitness had actually changed the children�s� brains or if children with well-developed brains just liked exercise.
So for the new study, which was published in September in Pediatrics, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign approached school administrators at public elementary schools in the surrounding communities and asked if they could recruit the school�s 8- and 9-year-old students for an after-school exercise programme.
This group was of particular interest to the researchers because previous studies had determined that at that age, children typically experience a leap in their brain�s so-called executive functioning, which is the ability to impose order on your thinking. Executive functions help to control mental multitasking, maintain concentration, and inhibit inappropriate responses to mental stimuli.
Children whose executive functions are stunted tend to have academic problems in school, while children with well-developed executive functions usually do well.
The researchers wondered whether regular exercise would improve children�s executive-function skills, providing a boost to their normal mental development.
They received commitments from 220 local youngsters and brought all of them to the university for a series of tests to measure their aerobic fitness and current executive functioning.
The researchers then divided the group in half, with 110 of the children joining a wait list for the after-school programme, meaning that they would continue with their normal lives and serve as a control group.
The other 110 boys and girls began being bused every afternoon to the university campus, where they participated in organized, structured bouts of what
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