Most kiddos ages 2 to 4 aren’t moving nearly enough each day, even when they attend preschool, a new UK study finds. Researchers tracked the activity levels of 419 preschoolers in England and Scotland using special activity belts called accelerometers. These devices recorded how much children moved during school days and days spent at home. Fewer than 1 in 4 children, about 23%, reached the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommendation of 180 minutes of daily physical activity. Even fewer, only 2.4%, met the goal of at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity per day. Children were more active on days they attended daycare and preschool settings, moving about 15 minutes more per day compared to days spent outside of care. But most children were still not active enough overall, either at school or at home. Boys were more likely to meet activity targets than girls, with 8% more boys hitting the guidelines. Older preschoolers also tended to be more active than younger ones. Outside of daycare or preschool settings, children from less deprived backgrounds were more active than children from more deprived families. But when kids were in early care and school settings, those differences mostly disappeared, showing these settings can help reduce gaps in physical activity. “These findings highlight a critical gap in physical activity among preschoolers,” Kim Hannam, a research fellow…  read on >  read on >

Fitter bodies and muscles could keep brains young and fit, too, a new study suggests. “Healthier bodies with more muscle mass and less hidden belly fat are more likely to have healthier, youthful brains,” said study senior author Dr. Cyrus Raji, associate professor of radiology and neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. “While it is commonly known that chronological aging translates to loss of muscle mass and increased hidden belly fat, this work shows that these health measures relate to brain aging itself,” Raji noted. “It shows muscle and fat mass quantified in the body are key reflectors of brain health, as tracked with brain aging.” His team analyzed the whole-body MRI images of almost 1,200 healthy adults to pinpoint the ideal “body profile” for healthy brain aging.  They will report their findings next week in Chicago at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). Speaking in an RSNA news release, Raji said there’s long been “widely held hypotheses about the association between body composition biomarkers and brain health.” In the new study, his team collected whole-body MRI scans of 1,164 healthy men and women who averaged about 55 years of age. They combined the MRI data with another technology that allows tissues to show up as bright in areas of fat deposition, and dark in fluid-rich…  read on >  read on >

Fitter bodies and muscles could keep brains young and fit, too, a new study suggests. “Healthier bodies with more muscle mass and less hidden belly fat are more likely to have healthier, youthful brains,” said study senior author Dr. Cyrus Raji, associate professor of radiology and neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. “While it is commonly known that chronological aging translates to loss of muscle mass and increased hidden belly fat, this work shows that these health measures relate to brain aging itself,” Raji noted. “It shows muscle and fat mass quantified in the body are key reflectors of brain health, as tracked with brain aging.” His team analyzed the whole-body MRI images of almost 1,200 healthy adults to pinpoint the ideal “body profile” for healthy brain aging.  They will report their findings next week in Chicago at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). Speaking in an RSNA news release, Raji said there’s long been “widely held hypotheses about the association between body composition biomarkers and brain health.” In the new study, his team collected whole-body MRI scans of 1,164 healthy men and women who averaged about 55 years of age. They combined the MRI data with another technology that allows tissues to show up as bright in areas of fat deposition, and dark in fluid-rich…  read on >  read on >

When it comes to warding off excess fat, boosting exercise levels while improving your diet may be most effective, rather than focusing on either exercise or diet alone. That’s the finding from a seven-year study of almost 7,300 British adults.  “We found that combining a better diet with more physical activity is an effective way to improve not just weight, but how much and where fat is stored in the body,” noted study lead author Dr. Shayan Aryannezhad. He helped conduct the research while at the University at the University of Cambridge’s Medical Research Council (MRC). There’s an added bonus to the exercise-diet combo, Aryannezhad said, because “it’s particularly effective at reducing the build-up of harmful fat around organs.” He left the MRC’s epidemiology unit earlier this year and is now a clinical research fellow at the University of Oxford.  For the study, Aryannezhad and colleagues wanted to tease out the types of body fat lost under various weight-loss strategies. “When people talk about changes in body weight, they often refer to a single number on the scale,” he explained in a Cambridge news release. “But not all weight loss or gain is the same. First of all, we need to focus on fat mass when considering the risk of metabolic diseases like diabetes and heart disease. Second, body fat is stored in different places, and…  read on >  read on >

When it comes to warding off excess fat, boosting exercise levels while improving your diet may be most effective, rather than focusing on either exercise or diet alone. That’s the finding from a seven-year study of almost 7,300 British adults.  “We found that combining a better diet with more physical activity is an effective way to improve not just weight, but how much and where fat is stored in the body,” noted study lead author Dr. Shayan Aryannezhad. He helped conduct the research while at the University at the University of Cambridge’s Medical Research Council (MRC). There’s an added bonus to the exercise-diet combo, Aryannezhad said, because “it’s particularly effective at reducing the build-up of harmful fat around organs.” He left the MRC’s epidemiology unit earlier this year and is now a clinical research fellow at the University of Oxford.  For the study, Aryannezhad and colleagues wanted to tease out the types of body fat lost under various weight-loss strategies. “When people talk about changes in body weight, they often refer to a single number on the scale,” he explained in a Cambridge news release. “But not all weight loss or gain is the same. First of all, we need to focus on fat mass when considering the risk of metabolic diseases like diabetes and heart disease. Second, body fat is stored in different places, and…  read on >  read on >