You may want to ask your kiddiewink to get up and do something as a new study has suggested that sedentary lifestyle and overweight weaken arterial health already in childhood.
The Physical Activity and Nutrition in Children Study (PANIC) carried out in the Institute of Biomedicine at the University of Eastern Finland shows that low levels of physical activity, weaker physical fitness and higher body fat content are linked to arterial stiffness already in 6-8 year-old children.
The study sample included 160 children, and the findings were published in Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports.
The study showed that better physical fitness, plenty of leisure time physical activity and a low body fat percentage were associated with more flexible arterial walls already in primary school children.
An analysis of the joint effects of these factors shows that only physical fitness was independently linked to arterial stiffness. Children whose physical fitness was better than that of their peers also had a better arterial dilation capacity during physical exercise.
Furthermore, the study showed that children with weak physical fitness combined with a high body fat percentage or low levels of physical activity also had the stiffest arteries.
Moreover, higher arterial stiffness was also found in children with low levels of physical activity combined with a high body fat percentage. Children with the most physical activity or with the best physical fitness had the most flexible arteries and the best arterial dilation capacity.
The findings suggest that a lifestyle intervention in childhood can reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases later in life. Another finding of the study deserving special attention is the association of better physical fitness with better arterial health, suggesting that especially regular, high-intensity physical exercise can be beneficial for arterial health.
