Corona pandemic significantly exacerbates lack of exercise among schoolchildren

According to a study commissioned by the health insurance company DAK, the corona pandemic has exacerbated the lack of exercise among children in Germany. The proportion of sufficiently active children among the socially disadvantaged has dropped particularly sharply from 27 to 22 percent, the DAK announced. The Institute for Therapy and Health Research (IFT-Nord) in Kiel surveyed almost 18,000 schoolchildren in grades 5 to 10 in 13 federal states in the 2021/2022 school year.

Overall, 68 percent of all boys and girls surveyed were sedentary. 38 percent would have spoken of less sport in the past two school years. The DAK reported that it was 44 percent for children from a lower social class and even 46 percent for disadvantaged girls. Schoolchildren spend an average of more than twelve hours a day sitting down. Only 46 percent of those surveyed knew that sitting can make you ill.

According to the national exercise recommendations, it is advisable for health reasons that children and young people exercise moderately to intensively for at least 90 minutes a day, explained the DAK. Of these, 60 minutes can be everyday activities such as walking to school or climbing the stairs in the school building. The remaining minutes should be devoted to intense physical activity. Less than 90 minutes of exercise a day is considered sedentary.

The CEO of the DAK, Andreas Storm, called the lack of exercise among young people alarming. "Because it is partly responsible for a wide variety of diseases." The deficiency is a massive health risk that is often underestimated, but can also be changed. "We must make it our task to encourage people to enjoy movement again and to prevent long periods of sitting."

From the point of view of the IFT-Nord study leader Reiner Hanewinkel, the pandemic has exacerbated the lack of exercise. In particular, those school children who had not been active enough before had moved less. "It shows again that the health-endangering lack of exercise in Germany has a clear social component," said Hanewinkel.

Most recently, the Eppendorf University Hospital presented a study that showed that the risk to children from the corona virus was considered to be rather low. The study started immediately after the first Hamburg lockdown in spring 2020. According to the UKE, only one child in the entire cohort had an acute SARS-CoV-2 infection at that time. Antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 were detected in 67 children, which corresponds to 1.44 percent of the total group examined. The proportion of positive children was lowest in the youngest age group and increased with each year of life. The UKE conclusion is: "This result shows a low rate of infection during the first wave of the pandemic."