Increasing the percentage of elementary school children in the United States who participate in 25 minutes of physical activity three times a week from 32 percent to 50 percent would avoid $21.9 billion in medical costs and lost wages over the course of their lifetimes, new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health research suggests.
The findings, published May 1 in Health Affairs, suggest that just a small increase in the frequency of exercise among children ages 8 through 11 would also result in 340,000 fewer obese and overweight youth, a reduction of more than 4 percent. If all current 8- through 11-year-olds in the United States exercised 25 minutes a day, three times a week, the researchers suggest that $62.3 billion in medical costs and lost wages over the course of their lifetimes could be avoided and 1.2 million fewer youths would be overweight or obese.
These numbers represent cost savings for one cohort of 8-to-11 year olds, so every year that children in this age group reach those levels of physical activity, over $60 billion more would be saved.