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Walking to School:
What benefit to health?
Increased physical activity is one of the benefits claimed to result from walking to
school. At the Peninsula Medical School in Plymouth, UK, objective measures were
used to test this claim, and to assess its health benefits. The results were not impressive, but we could suggest that walking to school may become a good habit that will prove beneficial to children's adult lifes. Getting used to walking instead of being driven, whenever possible, can only affect positively any individual.
In that study, CSA accelerometers measured physical activity in 275 children (121 girls, 154 boys, mean age 4.9 years) for five consecutive schooldays and a weekend. Parents were asked whether the child walked to school, and the time it took. Physical activity, body mass index, skinfolds (Skinfold measurement: Estimation of body fat by skinfold thickness measurement) and metabolic status (insulin resistance by HOMA and fasting triglycerides) were compared between children who |
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walked to school and those driven by car (HOMA= Homeostasis Model Assessment estimating steady state beta cell function and insulin sensitivity as percentages of a normal reference population). Twice as many children walked as were driven. The average daily walking time to and from school was 12 minutes. Physical activity recorded during the journey was 18% higher among those who walked. However, this difference represented only 2% of total weekly activity, and made no difference to it. There were no differences in body mass index, skinfold, insulin or triglyceride levels. The patterns were the same whether girls and boys were analyzed separately or together.
In conclusion: Walking to school makes no significant contribution to overall physical activity in five-year-olds. There may be other benefits from walking to school (eg reduced toxic fumes), but neither an improvement in metabolic health nor a reduction in body mass appears to be one of them.
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