To Your Health
November, 2024 (Vol. 18, Issue 11) |
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For Kids' Mental Health
By Editorial Staff
Mental health has taken center stage, particularly as the COVID-19 lockdowns and resulting remote-work transitions across the country isolated people from their traditional social circles.
Add to that our increasing (over)reliance on technology, rather than face-to-face interaction, spending time outdoors, etc., and you have a recipe for mental-health disaster.
If you think mental health is only a problem for adults, think again. The good news is that, just like adults, some of the potential solutions are the same. Case in point: research suggests that for children, good physical fitness protects them from mental-health issues in adolescence. Among adolescents followed for eight years, beginning in childhood, better cardiovascular fitness and improvements in fitness over that time period were associated with fewer symptoms of stress and depression in adolescence.
Study participants were 6-9 years old when the study started and 15-17 years old when the study ended. Researchers conducted physical-fitness assessments at baseline, after two years and after eight years; mental-health assessments were conducted after eight years. Physical fitness variables assessed included cardiorespiratory fitness (maximal power output, peak oxygen uptake), motor fitness (10x5 meter shuttle run), and muscle fitness (standing long jump, hand-grip strength).
If you have children, physical and mental health should be top of mind in terms of what you teach and cultivate. Fortunately, the two appear to go hand in hand. Talk to your doctor for additional information.
