Toddlers who are active throughout the day manage their emotions better and have a better memory than young children who do not move.
- Infants who are not yet moving should be placed in a supine position for at least 30 minutes, spread throughout the day during waking time.
- Children 1 to 2 years old should not be immobilized for more than an hour at a time (in a pram, stroller, high chair or on the back of an adult) or remain seated for a long time.
Over a 24-hour day, infants, younger than 12 months, and children 1 to 2 years old should be physically active several times a day in a variety of ways, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Recently, researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA) found that more physical activity and less screen time were linked to better executive function in toddlers. .
“Executive function is your ability to perform behaviors”
To reach this conclusion, the scientists carried out a study published in the journal The Journal of Pediatrics. Their objective ? Whether meeting the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations for diet and physical activity was related to toddlers’ ability to remember, plan, pay attention, move on from a task to another and manage their own emotions and behaviors. This set of skills is known as “executive function”.
“Executive function is your ability to engage in goal-directed behaviors. It includes abilities such as inhibitory control, which allows you to manage your thoughts, emotions, and behavior; working memory, through which you are able to hold information in mind long enough to complete a task; and cognitive flexibility, the skill with which you switch between tasks or competing demands”, explained Naiman Khan, author of the work, in a statement.
Toddlers should be physically active every day
As part of the research, the team recruited 352 families. The parents of the 24-month-old children were asked to complete a questionnaire designed to measure the executive function of toddlers. They had to assess their child’s ability to plan and organize their thoughts, manage their emotions, cope with their impulses, remember information and focus their attention on other tasks. Parents were also asked to provide information about their young children’s diet, screen time and physical activity.
According to the results, toddlers who spent less than 60 minutes a day in front of a screen and moved throughout the day had better executive function, better self-control and better memory. “The influence of the adoption of healthy behaviors on cognitive abilities seems to be evident from early childhood, in particular for behaviors related to physical activity and sedentary lifestyle”, concluded Naiman Khan.
