1 In 3 Kids Not In Physical Shape
Liz Szabo, USA TODAY, Dec. 21, 2005
One out of three U.S. adolescents is physically unfit, putting them at increased risk of heart disease when they get older, new research shows.
In a study in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers asked kids to walk or run on a treadmill, then measured their heart rate and blood pressure.
About 34% of 3,110 adolescents fell into the bottom fitness level.
Unfit kids tended to have other health problems, too.
They were more than twice as likely to be overweight, according to the study. They were two to three times as likely to have high cholesterol than kids with higher fitness scores.
Black girls and Mexican-American boys were the least likely to be fit, according to the study.
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