Sedentary lifestyle could be masking serious health problems in children

Children who seem healthy and of normal weight could have serious health problems because of the United Kingdom’s increasingly sedentary lifestyle, new research says.

A study published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood also warns that fitness levels of children in the UK are falling twice as fast as those in the rest of the world.

Researchers from the University of Essex’s Centre for Sports and Exercise Science said that increasing weight gain did not explain the “large and worrying” falls in UK children’s cardiorespiratory fitness levels over the past decade.

Global fitness levels of children have dropped by around 4% in the past 10 years, but this UK based …