Healthy bodies lead to healthy minds
March 9, 2010 |15:46 | Other By : Team X
There were many good reasons for Vancouver to host the Olympics. But one of the best of them, in our view, was that they'd encourage a whole new generation of young Canadians to get off the couch and get into sports. So often you hear top athletes, including gold-medallist Alexandre Bilodeau, talk of how their inspiration came from those who won Olympic medals before them.
It's the kind of inspiration B.C. children clearly need, not just to succeed in sports, but to do well in school as pediatrics at West Virginia University.well. That's because academic success goes hand in hand with physical fitness, as a new study shows.
U.S. researchers who tested nearly 1,200 children in Grade 5 and then again in Grade 7 found their academic performance increased when their fitness improved . . . and fell when it declined. "Children's physical fitness is associated with their academic performance," noted study author Lesley Cottrell, an associate professor of.
This should come as little surprise to those who know the Latin saying "mens sana in corpore sano" . . . a healthy mind in a healthy body. But it reinforces the fact that, given the current high level of child obesity in North America, we must do more to improve the fitness of all our schoolchildren -- not just those with Olympic dreams.
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