Researchers in the United States say that doing some form of aerobic exercise during the daytime might improve the sleep-related breathing problems experienced by many children who are overweight or obese.

Catherine L. Davis, PhD, and colleagues from the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, conducted a study of 100 overweight child.

They randomly split the children into three groups; one group were given 40 minutes of supervised aerobic exercise such as tag, basketball, soccer, or rope skipping, every day for 13 weeks.

Another group were given 20 minutes of the same sort of daily aerobic exercise while the third group were not assigned to any aerobic exercise programme but continued with their usual activities.

Following the 13 week period, parents completed a follow-up survey on their child’s snoring and other sleep-related breathing problems and it was found that the children in the two exercise groups both showed a similar decrease in snoring and sleep-related breathing problems.

The children not assigned to exercise did not experience these effects and the researchers point out that the improvements were not connected to weight loss or a change in Body Mass Index (BMI).

Children who exercised a minimum of 40 minutes a day showed the biggest overall improvement in sleep-related breathing problems, say the researchers.

Diabetes, hypertension and other obesity-related chronic diseases that are prevalent among adults have now become more common in youngsters and the percentage of children and adolescents who are overweight and obese is now higher than ever before.

Obesity has quadrupled over the last 25 years among boys and girls and at present approximately 30.3 percent of children (ages 6 to 11) are overweight and 15.3 percent are obese.

Obesity is known to double a child’s risk of developing diabetes.

The researchers say the study supports the benefits of physical activity on overweight children’s health, even when weight loss does not occur.

The article is published in Obesity in the November edition.