A new study on dog ownership and adolescent physical activity has revealed that the key to get your inactive teen off the couch is bringing a 'fun loving' dog home.
"You can think of your dog not only as your best friend, but also a social support tool for being active," said John Sirard, the study's lead author and an assistant professor at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
In the study, Sirard and his colleagues assessed 618 pairs of Minneapolis adolescents and their parents about the number of dogs in their home and how much time they spent in physical activity. For a week, 318 of those teens also wore accelerometers — devices used to collect data on time spent moving.
It turns out that teens from dog-owning families recorded greater amounts of movement on the accelerometer devices, even after researchers took into account demographic variables, like gender, race and socioeconomic status. This might mean that teens with dogs could log about 15 additional minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week, according to the authors.
Finding ways to encourage teens' physical activity levels is critical, since time spent exercising drops precipitously after the elementary school years, said Cheryl B. Anderson, Ph.D., a visiting assistant professor of pediatrics at the Children Nutrition Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine.
"You may walk it, you may not, but the fact that you have this animal in the house makes you get up off the chair more. Every bit of activity is important," Anderson said.
"You can think of your dog not only as your best friend, but also a social support tool for being active," said John Sirard, the study's lead author and an assistant professor at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
In the study, Sirard and his colleagues assessed 618 pairs of Minneapolis adolescents and their parents about the number of dogs in their home and how much time they spent in physical activity. For a week, 318 of those teens also wore accelerometers — devices used to collect data on time spent moving.
It turns out that teens from dog-owning families recorded greater amounts of movement on the accelerometer devices, even after researchers took into account demographic variables, like gender, race and socioeconomic status. This might mean that teens with dogs could log about 15 additional minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week, according to the authors.
Finding ways to encourage teens' physical activity levels is critical, since time spent exercising drops precipitously after the elementary school years, said Cheryl B. Anderson, Ph.D., a visiting assistant professor of pediatrics at the Children Nutrition Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine.
"You may walk it, you may not, but the fact that you have this animal in the house makes you get up off the chair more. Every bit of activity is important," Anderson said.
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