(NaturalNews – J. Anderson) Mother Nature may have even more positive health powers than we thought! According to Coventry University research published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, children who exercise outside are significantly more likely to experience positive health effects post-exercise than if the exercise was inside.
The Study
The research was conducted on a group of 9- to 10-year-olds who had to complete multiple 15-minute cycling sessions. During one session, the children were shown pictures of a forest path which was synced to their bike; in another session, they were given no visual enhancement at all. After the session in which they were given “green stimulus,” the children experienced significantly lower blood pressure than when given no stimulus. The authors of the study noted that lower blood pressure can be attributed to a lower risk of healthy problems such as cardiovascular disease.
The lead researcher of the study, Dr. Michael Duncan of Coventry University had this to say regarding the results: “If there is indeed a correlation between viewing scenes of nature and a lower blood pressure post exercise, as indicated by our data, it could have very positive implications in encouraging public health practitioners to prescribe outdoor exercise to reduce health risk.”
Exercise in Children
Exercise in general is great for children, because it sets them up for a healthier adulthood by instilling a sense of a healthy lifestyle! In fact, research has gone so far as to hypothesize that a child’s “weight fate” is determined by age five! This means that children who are obese by this early age are more than likely to remain this weight for a large portion of their adult lives (this of course is not always true; with exercise and the proper diet, anyone can control their weight). Not only does exercise keep us physically fit, but research has shown that exercise in children (as well as adults) is vital in helping memory function too!
Although the study was done with visual stimuli and not an actual outdoor exercise experience, it does raise questions for future research on the subject. We know that exercise in general is amazingly healthy for all of us, but exercising outside could help boost those health benefits even more! From the data in the study provided, it does seem that children and adults alike could benefit from exercising more outdoors.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.coventry.ac.uk
http://www.naturalnews.com
http://www.naturalnews.com
http://science.naturalnews.com
