Exercise in Children Leads to better Sleep and more Focus, Study Says

Another Condition Misdiagnosed as ADHD. But make the kids exercise?

A new study shows definite results that exercise for overweight children can help reduce snoring, hence improving sleep quality, attention span and focus.

Snoring is associated with poor sleep quality, which can lead to learning and behavioral problems that are often mistaken for disorders such as ADHD, says Dr. Catherine L. Davis of the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta.

Furthermore, prescribing stimulant ADHD drugs, like Ritalin, to kids who aren’t sleeping well will only make matters worse, she added. She also noted the growing evidence that sleep disorders can lead to a great risk of being overweight.

To research whether exercise might reduce sleep-disordered breathing in overweight kids, Dr. Davis and her team randomly divided 100 overweight children in the 7-to-11 age group between three different control groups. For the 13 week study period, the “high-dose” exercise group were involved in 40 minutes of physical activity every school day, the “low-dose” group exercised for 20 minutes a day and the third control group did not perform additional exercise.

The workouts consisted of games like basketball and tag, but unlike traditional gym class, Davis noted, there was no standing around waiting to play or be picked — the children were on the move for the entire session.

At the beginning of the study, one quarter of the participants’ parents reported symptoms in their children, such as snoring and inattention, serious enough to indicate a problem. Currently, just 2 percent of all children are thought to have sleep-disordered breathing, Davis and her colleagues note in the current issue of the journal Obesity.

By the end of the study period, half of the children who snored and were assigned to one of the exercise groups had stopped snoring altogether. Greater improvements were seen among the high-dose exercisers. However, weight, fatigue and behavior did not change.

Exercise alone is generally not enough to help people lose weight, Davis noted, although it does help people become more fit, physically and mentally, in every aspect. It’s possible that the workouts helped reduce the fat surrounding the neck area that can lead to collapse of the airway during sleep, she added, while exercise may also have had metabolic or neurological effects that made the brain, nerves and muscles better able to maintain an open airway.

To get the same amount of exercise in the real world, the children would probably need to exercise for an hour each day, Davis said. She recommended that parents send their kids out for some exercise right after school. Allowing them to burn off pent up energy will likely improve their mental focus and ability to tackle homework afterwards, she said.