Key result
Exercising over 10 hours weekly is linked to ~50% lower obesity odds in student athletes.
Why the study?
Recognizing the cardiac features of athletically trained children is important for health care providers and exercise physiologists alike.
Cross-Sectional (n=7,048)
Yes
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
May support higher exercise volumes in school athletes; hypothesis-generating for obesity and psychiatric benefits, requiring prospective trials before practice change.
Recognizing the cardiac features of athletically trained children bears importance for health care providers and exercise physiologists alike. This literature review reveals that ventricular enlargement and/or hypertrophy are commonly observed in studies of pre- and early-adolescent endurance athletes, yet the magnitude of these features is less than that described in adult athletes. Moreover, the upper range of values in child athletes is sufficiently small that clinical confusion with findings mimicking those in individuals with heart disease should not be expected to occur. In contrast to sex differences in the "athlete's heart" in adults, cardiac structural findings in child athletes are similar in males and females. The extent that cardiac features observed in trained child athletes reflect a response to training or are influenced by genetic preselection remains uncertain.
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Thomas Rowland (2015) conducted a cross-sectional in Cardiovascular and non-cardiovascular health outcomes in youth athletes (n=7,048). Weekly physical activity volume (>10 hours/week, 5-10 hours/week, 2-5 hours/week) vs. <2 hours/week of physical activity was evaluated on Obesity in high school athletes (>10 h/week vs <2 h/week) (OR 0.496, 95% CI 0.331-0.763, p=0.00542).
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