More sport needed in schools to combat depression

More sport needed in schools to combat depression

By Charlotte Fantelli

Large-scale study reveals fitness in teens associated with a reduced risk of developing serious depression later in life.

Mental Healthy often report on studies linking fitness levels and mental wellbeing, it is an area that has been much examined and research proves time and again that the two are intrinsically linked. Now today 14/06/12, the British Journal of Psychiatry adds a new study to its publications, one that looks specifically at teen fitness and the likelihood of depression later in life.

More than one million men took part in the study lasting over 50 years, carried out by researchers from the University of Gothenburg’s Sahlgrenska.

1,117,292 men born between 1950 and 1987 were examined extensively, both physically (including tests of their cardiovascular and muscular fitness), and psychologically, on enlisting for mandatory military service at 18-years-old. The researchers were keen to ensure that the participants had no history of mental illness to alleviate the possibility of reverse correlation, in other words, they worked to make sure that the men in poorer physical fitness were not so due to underlying mental ill-health.  

Between 1969 and 2008, the researchers studied how many of the participants had received inpatient treatment for depression and found the men who had performed poorly on the cardiovascular fitness tests on enlisting, were at far higher risk of being hospitalised with depression in later life.

The researcher who led the study, Dr Maria Åberg, said: “The teenage years are a critical period in the development of the brain

“Our study demonstrates that low cardiovascular fitness at age 18 predicted serious depression in adulthood.”

The study’s scale allowed the researchers to examine correlation over a very long period of time, giving more insight into long-term risk.

Dr Åberg tells of her findings: “Even more remarkable is that the increase in risk of depression could be observed in the men up to 40 years later.”

A keen researcher in the area of teenage fitness and the brain,  Dr Åberg’s previous studies have shown that higher IQ and academic performance can also be linked to high levels of fitness in teenage years. She hopes that schools will take on board these findings, and believes they should give sport a higher status and more resources.

Dr Åberg concluded: “While there’s a need for more research in this area, our results provide strong support for school curricula including more active sporting activity and encouraging habits that build and maintain physical fitness.”

We too hope that schools and parents alike take note to give the next generation the best chance of complete wellbeing.

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