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Dr Gérald Kierzek (Medical Director)
More sedentary, less athletic, adolescents put their health at risk (overweight, diabetes, obesity, etc.). Faced with this inactivity, the government and the world of sport want to encourage young people to get active!
The sedentary lifestyle of teenagers promotes overweight, diabetes, obesity…
Our teenagers don’t move enough and it’s a real health problem. Already in 2020, ANSES (National Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety) published an alert intended for the public authorities. Two out of three young people aged 11 to 17 (66%) presented a worrying health risk, characterized by the simultaneous exceeding of two health thresholds: more than 2 hours of screen time and less than 60 minutes of physical activity per day. Nearly half of them (49%) presented a very high health risk, characterized by more severe thresholds, i.e. more than 4.5 hours of daily screen time and/or less than 20 minutes of physical activity per day.
A new study conducted with more than 9,000 middle school students in 6th grade, aged around 11, is even more worrying. Their physical capacity was measured through the shuttle test, a 20-meter run with increasing cadence.
- The children tested run slower, at 10.2 km/h, than a population of the same age more than thirty years ago.
- But after splitting nearly 6,000 students into two groups, college students who received specific training improved their performance by 4.6%, going from 10.2 km/h to 10.6 km/h.
- The other group, which followed only the standard two hours of sport per week, also progressed but less markedly, rising to 10.4 km/h.
Each year, the rate of French children affected by diabetes would increase by 2%, the same increase observed with obesity, and 17% of children would be overweight. “Let’s face it, we are facing a societal tsunami of physical inactivity and sedentary lifestyle“, assured François Carré during the official presentation of this study in a primary school in Nogent-sur-Marne in the presence of the Ministers of National Education and Sports, Pap Ndiaye and Amélie Oudéa-Castéra.
Motivating teens to reverse the trend
“But this study contains a message of hope. We will have to replace sitting time with moving time. And for that, the school must help, which it does with the 30 minutes of sport offered per day in primary school“, assured the cardiologist. The observation is therefore serious, but not hopeless. To “reverse the curves”, the Ministers of Education and Sports have thus announced the launch of a “30-minute French team” of A device, intended to fight against the increase in sedentary lifestyle and obesity among college students, worn by more than 150 sports personalities.
This team refers to the daily objective of half an hour of sport at school carried by Emmanuel Macron for several years. The goal? Mobilize “more than 150” sports personalities including cyclist Audrey Cordon-Ragot, handball player Jérôme Fernandez, athlete Sasha Zhoya, breakdancer Carlota Dudek and disabled tennis player Pauline Déroulède to talk with students about “their discipline and their background“during two-hour sessions during which they”participate in a physical activity session with them“. And thus arouse desires or vocations.
30 minutes of ports per day, a minimum
This new announcement echoes the measures taken by the government to strengthen sports time at school, with in particular, a generalization throughout the territory of 30 minutes of sport per day in primary schools since last September, in addition to the three weekly sports hours.
At the same time, 173 colleges have been experimenting with two hours of additional sport since November, Pap Ndiaye also recalled on Monday in an interview given to the Parisian.
Initiatives that are beneficial, but not yet sufficient, as Dr Gérald Kierzek, medical director of Doctissimo, reminds us:
“These measures are nothing very new, except that the situation among teenagers is getting worse. We can’t get messages across, even though it’s about fairly simple prevention. But a resumption of physical activity and 30 minutes of sport is a minimum! The objective would be to achieve a “prevention generation”, ready to move, but also to eat well and not to smoke”.
The benefits of physical activity
Remember that according to the World Health Organization and all health authorities, physical activity is essential in all aspects of life, at all ages:
- Physical activity is beneficial for the health of the heart, body and mind;
- It contributes to the prevention and management of non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer and diabetes;
- It reduces symptoms of depression and anxiety;
- It improves thinking, learning and judgment skills;
- It ensures healthy growth and development in young people;
- It improves general well-being.