The older a child grows, the less active they become

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2025-09-11 04:00

Australia; International; VIC

Photo by Bambi Corro on Unsplash

For every year older a child grows, they have approximately 25 minutes more daily sedentary time, according to international and Australian researchers. The team used data from studies that collected accelerometer statistics on the movement of children and teens, including 6,567 participants who had provided accelerometer data over at least two time periods. They say at each year of age, low-level physical activity decreased by about 22 minutes a day while moderate to vigorous exercise decreased by three minutes a day.

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Journal/
conference: PLOS One

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Deakin University, University of East Anglia, UK

Funder: The ICAD data pooling project was funded through a grant from the National Prevention Research Initiative [G0701877 to UE]. The funding partners relevant to this award are: British Heart Foundation; Cancer Research UK; Department of Health; Diabetes UK; Economic and Social Research Council; Medical Research Council; Research and Development Office for the Northern Ireland Health and Social Services; Chief Scientist Office; Scottish Executive Health Department; The Stroke Association; Welsh Assembly Government and World Cancer Research Fund. This work was additionally supported by grants from the Medical Research Council [MC_UU_12015/3; MC_UU_12015/7 to EMFvS] and The Research Council of Norway [249932/F20 to UE], and salary support from Bristol University, Loughborough University [to LS] and Norwegian School of Sport Sciences [to BHH and UE].

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