Want your kid to be slim? Make him kick football for 15 minutes

A new study by US and British researchers has found that if children are involved in physical activities like playing basketball or swimming for 15 minutes then they are less likely to get fat.

Professor Andy Ness and colleagues studied 5,500 kids aged up to 12 years, who agreed to wear a sensor motion device and found that kids who were kicking football for only 15 minutes were tend to be more fit and less likely to put on weight then the children who remain inactive, as 15 minutes of kicking ball is equivalent to brisk walk, researchers reported in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine.

Professor Andy Ness, of the University of Bristol, said: "It has been really surprising to us how even small amounts of exercise appear to have dramatic results. If you say to parents they have got to take their children for an hour-long early morning run, they will throw up their hands and say it is impossible. But if you say kicking a ball around for 15 minutes or going for a quick swim is all that is needed then they may well feel that is manageable. And it is probably good for the family, too."

He further added that the data collected thus shows that the ‘higher intensity physical activity may be more important than total activity.’

"This study provides some of the first robust evidence on the link between physical activity and obesity in children" Chris Riddoch of Britain's Bath University, who worked on the study, said in a statement. "We know that diet is important, but what this research tells us is that we mustn't forget about activity. It's been really surprising to us how even small amounts of exercise appear to have dramatic results."

Obesity is spreading its claws everywhere, in America itself the 60% of the population is overweight, and then comes the Britons (a quarter of British children ageds 11 to 15 years are now obese or overweight) and other European countries. The people are eating fast food more and are not keeping tap on the calorie intake and they in turn don’t know what kind of exercise is best.

The researchers also had kids body fat measured using an X-ray emission scanner, which differentiates both muscle and fat deposits in the body. They rated the children with the top 10 percent levels of fat mass as obese.

The study found that the girls were less involved in the rigorous activities but still were no more likely to be obese than boys which means they adopted other methods of slimming down like dieting etc.

Professor Ness stressed that doing 15 minutes of moderate exercise a day should be regarded as a starting point, but one most people would find able to fit into their life-style.