Nutrition, Activity, and Health in Children

This chapter reviews current understanding of the associations between physical activity and nutrition in children 1 to 10 years of age. In general, both undernutrition and overnutrition are accompanied by lower levels of physical activity than in controls. In children of normal nutritional status, an association between physical activity and body composition has been difficult to demonstrate. It is clear that levels of physical activity in children are responsive to the physical and social environments, as well as to a child's nutritional status. In children of normal nutritional status, the level of physical activity increases with age in young children and then decreases in early adolescence, and males tend to be more physically active than females in a given population. Although there is a perception that children are less physically active than they were in the past, trends in physical activity through time are not known.