The winter months result in a strong dip in fitness levels especially amongst teenagers. The amount of activity is not compensated enough by its increase during the warmer periods.
Research carried out at the University of Montreal suggests that this isn’t necessarily just due to a colder climate after studying over twelve hundred pupils from different schools in the immediate area.
Information provided by the 12 – 13 year olds were compared to the corresponding weather reports and examined carefully.
It would seem that more needs to be done to encourage the different winter sports and promote more children to take up indoor activity as an alternative to their regular fitness routine at other times of the year.
Mathieu Belanger, who headed the research, explained that there was a drop of over third in daily exercise once the seasons changed. The study was carried out over five years and seemed to suggest that during the warmer months that planned activities often would lead to others and it was this that was lost in the winter time.
With child obesity on the rise research like this is seen as significant. Especially as over the period of a year the fluctuations in activity meant that overall not enough exercise is being undertaken.
This age range, often require adult intervention and encouragement and it would seem that is where the awareness of this kind of data should be pushed. There are often plenty of organised sports to avail of in the milder months but it is all forgotten about once winter sets in.
