Welcome to the world of University of Saskatchewan discovery, creativity, and innovation. Explore covers the latest research results, societal impacts, and outstanding people who are part of the Uof S's $140-million-a-year research enterprise.

Cover Story - Winter 2009

Vol. 2 No. 1

The Cost of Being an Inactive Kid

<<continued

In a study that is widely cited by other researchers, Bailey has shown that physically active kids build up stronger, denser bones than inactive kids. Recently, Baxter-Jones extended this research to illustrate that active pre-teens and early teens had much greater bone mass when they reached the age of 25 to 27.

Children have a window of opportunity for establishing bone mass for later life – a process Baxter-Jones calls “banking bone.” “The more bone you can lay down in that period of time, the more bone you’ve banked,” he says. “In theory, this way you should reduce the risk of osteoporosis later in life.”

Banking bone is crucial because osteoporosis sufferers lose bone density and endure more bone fractures. According to Bailey, adolescents bank as much bone during their four-year growth spurt as women lose during their post-menopausal years. What makes these findings so unique is the rarity of the studies that yielded them. Bailey’s first growth project, the Saskatchewan Child Growth and Development Study, which ran from 1963 to 1973, was the first long-term investigation of growth and fitness in school children.

“All the work on osteoporosis was looking at older people, since they’re the people who have the disease,” says Bailey. “But no one looked at the bone-mineral deposition in childhood growth.”

Recent studies examining children only compared the physical development of an active child with an inactive one of the same age. The children were followed for only a year or two, mainly because longterm studies are expensive and time-consuming.

more>>