Apparantly, children who regularly exercise are better at math

Seriously?? Who knew?

According to the National Center on Physical Activity and Disability (NCPAD), a study done on 171 school children aged 7 to 11 who were overweight showed that increasing their exercise also increased their math skills!

Dr. Catherine Davis, a clinical psychologist at Georgia Prevention Institute published a study in Health Psychology showing that “for children to reach their potential they need to be active.”

In the study, children who had increased physical activity and who raised their heart rates to 79% of normal (considered “vigorous exercise”) were able to improve their math skills without any tutoring or additional assistance. Reading skills, sad to say, were not impacted or improved during the course of this experiment.

So how can this be? According to the study findings, it is thought that the aerobic activity engaged in by the children increases blood flow and creates more connections between neurons. Similar studies among adults have also shown that exercise benefits the brain.

You can find more information at the source:

Medical College of Georgia (2011, February 11).
Exercise helps overweight children think better, do better in math.
ScienceDaily.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 18th, 2011 at 7:10 am and is filed under child fitness, excercise. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.