British children are increasingly sedentary, researchers warn today.
A new study finds that as many as 50% of seven-year-old spend up to seven hours a day sitting.
And no more than half of this age group achieve the recommended levels of physical activity, researchers report.
Girls are less active than boys while those in Northern Ireland and of Indian ethnic origin are also among the least active, the researchers report in BMJ Open.
The findings come from a detailed study of nearly 7,000 children born in the early years of the century.
Children wore devices called accelerometers for a week, only taking off during bathing or in bed.
This showed that on average children had 60 minutes of moderate to physical vigorous activity a day – the minimum recommended in national guidelines.
And on average children took 10,299 steps a day.
Researchers found children in the Midlands were the least active and those in the north-west of England the most active.
Today researcher Professor Carol Dezateux, of the UCL Institute of Child Health, London, UK, called for policies to promote more activity among girls, including dancing and ball games.
She said the difference between boys and girls was "striking."
BMJ Open 22 August 2013 [abstract]
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