Friday, April 8, 2011

Walking and Girls

There is so much discussion and promotion of getting children physically active and outdoors especially in the adolescent age range. A recent study evaluated data on the self reports of mode of transportation to school and extracurricular physical activity in 1700 adolescents (892 girls) ages 13-18.5 years old from Spain. The results indicated that girls who actively commuted to school had better cognitive scores but that was not the case with the boys. In addition, the girls who actively commuted more than 15 minutes per day to school had better cognitive performance that the girls who actively commuted less than 15 minutes per day.

Need to improve cognitive performance at school - try walking there. It is free and healthy for the mind and the body!

Reference: David Martinez-Gomez; Jonatan R. Ruiz; Sonia Gomez-Martinez; Palma Chillon; J. Pablo Rey-Lopez; Ligia E. Diaz; Ruth Castillo; Oscar L. Veiga; Ascension Marcos; for the AVENA Study Group Active Commuting to School and Cognitive Performance in Adolescents: The AVENA Study Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2011;165(4):300-305

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