Practicing an hour of light physical activity, such as walking or doing household chores, every day from the age of 12 reduces the appearance of depressive symptoms by 10% at 18 years of age.
The more time teenagers spend sitting, the more it affects their mental health. British researchers have observed a correlation between a sedentary lifestyle, i.e. the time spent sitting or lying down, and the risk of depression in adolescents. They published their result in the journal Lancet Psychiatry.
Light physical activity is enough
Physical activity, even light, plays an important role in the mental health of adolescents. “Our results show that young people who are inactive for a large part of the day throughout adolescence are at greater risk of depression by age 18.“, explains Aaron Kandola, lead author of the study. To reduce this risk, the researchers noted that walking or doing household chores for an hour every day at age 12 reduces the risk of developing symptoms of dementia by 10%. depression at 18.
To conduct their study, the researchers used data from 4,257 adolescents, followed since birth. They observed their movements through accelerometers placed on the participants for at least 10 hours over three days, at ages 12, 14 and 16. Thanks to this technology, the researchers were able to measure the physical activity practiced and its degree of intensity. At the same time, the teenagers had to regularly answer a questionnaire to measure depressive symptoms such as bad mood, loss of pleasure and poor concentration.
Declining physical activity between 12 and 16 years old
Every moment of physical inactivity plays a role in the mental health of adolescents. The researchers found that each hour spent with sedentary behavior at ages 12, 14, and 16 is associated with an increase in depression score of 11.1%, 8%, and 10.5%, respectively. 18 years old. Children with sedentary behavior at these three ages had 28.2% higher depression scores at age 18.
The researchers observed in each of these young people a drop in physical activity between the ages of 12 and 16. “Worryingly, the time young people spend inactive has been steadily increasing for years, but there’s a surprising lack of quality research on how it might affect their mental health.supports Aaron Kandola. The number of young people with depression also appears to be on the rise, and our study suggests that these two trends may be linked..”
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