A half-hour a day of vigorous exercise helps children function better at school, according to a study from the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta.
Dr. Catherine Davis, associate professor of pediatrics, studied 163 sedentary obese children ages 7 to 11 years old over a three-month period. One group did not exercise at all; one group did 20 minutes of hard exercise five days a week and the third group did 40 minutes five times a week.
Dr. Davis and her colleagues tested all the children at the beginning and end of the study. Children in the 40-minute group improved on executive functioning, which involves the ability to plan and organize schoolwork and control impulsive behaviors. They also increased four points on cognitive-performance. The 20-minute group had half those gains. Both exercise groups improved in math achievement.
Dr. Davis said the children in the exercise groups showed increased neural activity in the frontal areas of their brains during brain scans, which may explain why they showed academic improvements.
She presented this study at the annual meeting of the Obesity Society.