The pandemic wiped everything out. And one of the serious consequences is our physical condition. Our health. If you don’t leave the house, you don’t walk, you don’t walk, you don’t go down the office stairs, you don’t move your work, you don’t go to the gym, you don’t go out in the afternoon, at the end of the day go you don’t walk …
Simple habits are beneficial for physical and mental health. And if an adult can get on with life more or less, it is the most vulnerable, such as children, who have seen their world change. The study ‘Exercise, sedentary behavior, sleep quality and self-regulation in Spanish preschoolers’, conducted by researchers at the Public University of Navarra and Navarrabiomed, found that “the impact of confinement in the home as a result of Covid-19 caused preschool-age children (4-6 years) to lose their antisocial behavior, anxiety, and even depression-related behavior“.
Why the social relationship is so important in children
Not only the parks are closed, but also the children’s areas. Is they have not reopened. In a society like the present, where the number of children per family is less than two, it is essential that the youngest are with their peers.
Play, have fun, know your limits, those of other children, interact, fall, learn sensations, textures, what’s cold, what’s hot, inventing games in the park … it’s basic. And there is none.
And there is more. There is a significant decrease in physical activity, an increase in the sedentary lifestyle and a deterioration in sleep quality. Three very important factors in neurological development.
Less exercise, more physical and mental problems, also in children.
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Anxiety, depression, antisocial behavior
In the report, published in ‘International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health‘the authors say,’ provide our findings evidence of a negative effect of confinement on the amount of physical activity, sedentary behavior, quality of sleep and self-regulation“.
Specifically, daily physical activity decreased 43.3 minutes; sedentary behavior increased by 50.2 minutes; and sleep quality was reduced by 2.09%. The incarceration period also led to a negative increase in antisocial, anxiety and depression-related behavior.
In this sense, the study showed that preschoolers had more internalization and externalization problems during labor. “At these ages, behavioral and emotional problems can potentially cause internalization problems (ie, antisocial behavior) or externalization (ie, behavior related to anxiety or depression),” he says.
Preschoolers who met the minimum physical activity recommendations set by the World Health Organization during labor (180 minutes of physical activity per day, of which 60 minutes should be moderate or vigorous) showed less antisocial behavior. In this link you can find out how much exercise you should do according to your age according to the international body.
This study is the first to directly and objectively investigate the effect of Covid-19 home confinement on physical activity and sleep levels in preschool children using accelerometers, rather than using surveys and face-to-face interviews.