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According to experts, the ability of overweight children to think, plan and practice math is enhanced once they start exercising. Lead researcher Catherine Davis, a clinical health psychologist at the Georgia Prevention Institute at Georgia Health Sciences University in Augusta, said, “This implies that chronic sedentary behavior is compromising children’s ability and achievement. “We know that exercise is good for you, but we didn’t have very good evidence before this that it would help children do better in school.”
Details of the study
In a bid to assess whether physical activity enhances mathematics ability, the researchers recruited 171 children, aged seven to 11 years. All the kids were overweight and had a sedentary lifestyle at the onset of the study.
The children were split into three groups. The first was assigned to 20 minutes of aerobic exercise after school. The second group followed 40 minutes of exercise while the third got no exercise. Children assigned to the exercise regimen indulged in vigorous activities like running games, hula hoops and jump ropes. The kids underwent a test to measure their academic, reading and math skills with the help of Cognitive Assessment System and Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement III. In addition, some kids also received functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the areas of brain activity.
Outcome of the study
Kids who were physically active exhibited increased brain activity in the prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain linked with decision making, planning and correct social behavior. It was noted that the more the kids exercised, the better was the outcome. After a period of three months, students who exercised for 40 minutes daily enhanced their intelligence scores by an average of 3.8 points. Kids who exercised 20 minutes also displayed an increase in their intelligence scores, though to a smaller degree. Though, an improvement was noted in the math skills of the study subjects there was no apparent difference in their reading abilities. Davis stated, “That’s exciting and has important implications. I think it shows that children being sedentary may adversely impact their ability to do mathematics. And that’s very important.”
A plausible explanation
Though the study focused on overweight kids, researchers are optimistic that the findings will also translate to normal weight kids. Experts attribute the cognitive improvements to brain stimulation that came from exercise. Davis stated, “I hope these findings will help re-establish physical activity’s important place in schools in helping kids stay physically well and mentally sharp. For children to reach their potential, they need to be active.” Details of the findings are published in ‘Health Psychology.’
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