Shunning midday sun may not boost a child’s weight
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Parents can protect their children from harmful ultraviolet radiation by encouraging them to stay inside during midday, without increasing their odds of becoming overweight from reduced activity, a new study from Australia suggests.
Experts advise everyone, especially fair-skinned people, to limit their time outdoors during peak UV radiation hours—typically between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. A potential problem is that those are also peak playtime hours for children, and there’s been some concern that keeping them indoors will cut out exercise time and spur excess weight gain.
But in the new study, researchers found that keeping children indoors when the sun was at its strongest did not raise their risk of becoming overweight between the ages of 6 and 12.
The findings, published in the American Journal of Public Health, are based on 1,614 six-year-old school children who were randomly assigned to one of three groups. Over four years, children in two of the groups received extra education about sun protection during school health classes; the third group had standard health classes.
In general, the study found, children in the sun-protection groups did reduce the time they spent outside during peak UV hours in the summer. But there was no evidence that this caused any weight problems.
In each group, a similar percentage of children were overweight or obese by the age of 12.
“The message is that it is certainly possible for children to avoid sun exposure in the middle of the day without becoming overweight,” lead study author Dr. Elizabeth Milne, a researcher at the University of Western Australia, West Perth, told Reuters Health.
A caveat, Milne said, is that parents should be sure that their children get outside earlier or later in the day. Of the children she and her colleagues followed, there was actually no clear difference among the three groups in the total time spent outdoors; children in the sun-protection groups went outside when the sun was less intense.
Parents can also make sure their children have indoor physical activity, Milne said. At home, she suggested, kids can play games or do creative activities rather than sit in front of the television.
SOURCE: American Journal of Public Health, February 2007.
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