The kids’ research that might help elite sportspeople too: hunt on for perfect formula to healthy bones
Finding the ‘Goldilocks Day’ for children’s developing bones could have a big impact for elite athletes as well, researchers say.
Lifestyle
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Cracking the formula to healthy bones in kids may also be key to maximising performance of elite athletes while helping keep them injury free, according to Adelaide researchers.
The team from UniSA’s research group Alliance for Research in Exercise, Nutrition and Activity (ARENA) has been critically studying the physical activity, sedentary behaviours and sleep patterns of hundreds of children in a bid to find the ideal ratio for skeletal health.
“Bone health in kids – getting the best disposition and best bone mass – is really important because up to 90 per cent of bone mass is acquired as children, up to 18 to 20 years of age, after that it is really hard to increase,” lead researcher Dr Dot Dumuid said.
In the study, which involved more than 800 Australian children aged between 11 and 13 wearing a special wristband 24 hours a day for a week, a CAT scan was used to capture bone density and strength.
The aim, to measure the benefit of different activities on children’s bone health and discover the best daily balance of these activities – dubbed the “Goldilocks’ day”.
“(Not surprisingly,) we found for bone strength, loading the bones through exercises that involve weight bearing, jumping and repetitive loading is good,” Dr Dumuid said.
“But interestingly, we also found that sleep duration is really important which is a little surprising as you are not weight bearing and we tend to think of the importance of loading bones during exercise.
“Our findings show that, along with the higher intensities of physical activity, sleep duration is likely to be an important contributor to children’s bone health.
“Getting enough sleep seems to be particularly critical during the earlier stages of pubertal transition to adolescence.”
Dr Dumuid said while in its early stages with diet not yet added into the mix, the findings held significance for the management of elite sportspeople as well as blue-collar workers.
“The other area we are looking at is where people are pushing their bodies to the max and expecting a lot from them – this research looks at what is too much,” she said.
“So, when someone puts their body under a lot of strain, what recovery do they need? We want to find the best balance of stimulus and recovery.”
In terms of kids, Dr Dumuid said parents, caregivers and clinicians wanted to know “how much” time their children should spend sleeping, in sedentary behaviours, and in different intensities of physical activity.
“Until now, the research evidence has not directly addressed this question,” she said.
“It has looked at the relationships between individual activities and bone strength rather than identifying optimal durations across a day (but) we know very little about the relationships between children’s sleep duration and sitting time and their skeletal health
“Our study provides some of the first supporting evidence for children’s daily activity guidelines.
“The Goldilocks’ day tells us the best daily balance of these activities, where the durations of physical activity, sleep and sitting are ‘just right’ for optimal bone health.”
