Child’s play is good for everyone
By Gretchen Reynolds, New York Times
If all of the children who currently are sedentary started exercising every day, societies could save enormous amounts of money in the coming decades and have healthier citizens as a whole, according to a remarkable new study. In the United States alone, we could expect to save more than $120 billion every year in health care and associated expenses.
The study is the first to use sophisticated computer simulations to arrive at a literal and sobering societal price tag for allowing our children to be sedentary.
Inactivity is, of course, widespread among young people today. Recent research shows that in the United States and Europe, physical activity tends to peak at about age 7 for both boys and girls and tail off continually throughout adolescence. More than two-thirds of children in the United States rarely exercise at all.
