Worse physics with smartphones – Swedish Dagbladet

The culprit is spelled apparently cell phones.

– Everything responsibility can not be tipped over on the parents and the individual’s free choice, there may be social engineering which must says Anders Raustorp, associate professor at Gothenburg University.

He has led a group of researchers who measured daily physical activity in young, in grade 2 and 5, and produced results that he considers worrisome.

The results also worry when previous studies have shown that children who are not active enough in the age 11-12 years, maintains the pattern into adulthood.

– We followed them up we measured in 2000 when they were 22 and those who are not reached up to the recommendations for physical activity were more likely to maintain their activity patterns.

The kids have been wearing a pedometer for four days and their activity has been measured during both school and leisure time.

For both girls and boys in grades 2, activity was stable as well as for girls in grade 5. By contrast, physical activity significantly, or 24 percent, for boys in grade 5. The number of steps was reduced from 16 670 per day to 12 704. Only 20 per cent of boys reached the recommended 15,000 steps.

– All the boys had access to smart phones in grades 5 and our schoolyard measurements show that it is primarily boys that are absorbed by the mobiles, says Anders Raustorp.

He also points to statistics from 2013 from the National Media Council that showed that 22 percent of the eleven year old boys and four percent of the girls were online more than three hours each day.

– Boys playing more and there is more time consuming while the girls to a larger extent are social media and go quickly in and out.

Anders Raustorp see that for every step taken further into the digital society will screen more important meaning very sedentary. And this, he says, we must of course meet.

– 30 years ago they had three hours of gymnastics a week and there were few parents worried about their children’s physical activity. I think it is time that politicians gather around this.

He also says that freedom of establishment has led schools lack playgrounds and he calls good schoolyards as “pushing physical activity.”