Teens Eating Better, Exercising More: A Study

Teenagers are eating better and exercising more, a paper published in the journal Pediatrics suggests.

Data for the study was based on surveys taken by a nationally-representative sample of students registered in sixth through tenth grade for the school years beginning in 2001, 2005 and 2009. A part of the Health Behavior in School-aged Children study, each survey included between 9,000 and 15,000 participants.

Questions included how many days per week participants spent at least 60 minutes physically active, how much TV they watched and how often they consumed fruits and vegetables, among other things.

The results revealed a number of positive, albeit limited, trends.

For example, the number of days participants reported spending at least one hour physically active rose from an average of 4.3 in 2001-2002 to 4.5 in 2009-2010. The average number of school days in which participants reported eating breakfast also rose during this same period from three to 3.5. Frequency of fruit and vegetable consumption rose slightly during this period, too, though it still remained less than one daily serving on average for both food groups.

Meanwhile, the average number of hours spent watching TV fell from 3.1 to 2.4. Consumption of sweets and soft drinks also saw a decline.

"I would like to believe that all the public health efforts focusing on increasing physical activity and increasing fruit and vegetable consumption are having an effect, because that seems to be a pattern," Reuters reports Ronald Iannotti, the lead author on the study from the University of Massachusetts Boston, as saying.

The body mass index of participants followed a different trend, however, with the number of individuals ranking in the 95th percentile or higher rising from 10.3 percent at the beginning of 2000 to 12.7 by the 2005-2006 survey group. Still, the fact that BMI held steady over the next five or so years -- as indicated by the final survey period -- was encouraging to researchers.

"The fact that (obesity) is leveling off, that's a surprise and a major change from the steady increase that we've seen over time," Iannotti said. "This is great news."