Having a dog keeps your kids healthy!

Survey Reveals Kids With Dogs Are More Active


Posted by K9 Magazine Web Editor on February 28, 2011 in Dog News


Have you often wondered if having a dog would benefit your families health, getting you outdoors and give you a more active lifestyle? A new study reported today in The Tennessean has the answer! Researchers had 618 kids ranging between the ages of 12-16 years old wear accelerometers for a week to measure their physical activity. Half the families of the kids had dogs and half did not.



The study showed the kids in families with dogs got 32.1 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise a day, while those without dogs got 29.5 minutes. The difference isn't much, but lead author John R. Sirard of the report said it's big enough to suggest more study be done.



Parents of the teens also wore the lightweight devices, but the difference in activity levels between adults in the two groups was nonexistent, Sirard said, suggesting the kids might have been the ones taking the dogs out. The families were not asked who cared for the dogs.







The study which was undertaken at the University of Minnesota, was one of the first to examine the relationship between adolescents and dogs. Sirard, a professor at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, said the research didn't take into account the size or breed of the dog, the safety of the neighborhoods where the families lived or the level of attachment the kids had to the pets.



It's also possible that more active families were the ones that decided to get dogs in the first place, he said.



The study was funded by the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. Results appear in the March issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.