Fitness may boost kids’ grades

(HealthDay News) – Fit bodies may bring kids better test scores in school, a new study finds.

“Children’s physical fitness is associated with their academic performance,” said study author Lesley Cottrell, an associate professor of pediatrics at West Virginia University, in Morgantown.

In general, the fitter the student, the better the test scores, Cottrell’s team found.

The researchers evaluated almost 1,200 students, assessing their fitness in the fifth grade and then again in the seventh grade. They tested them in four subjects in seventh grade - reading, math, science and social studies – using standardized tests.

The researchers hypothesized that those children who maintained fitness over the two-year span would have the best test scores, and they were right.

Those who were in the “healthy” fitness zone in both the fifth and seventh grades did the very best of all – an average reading score of 3.31. “Mastery” at reading begins at a score of 3 or greater.

The emphasis was on fitness, not body weight, Cottrell said, which is good news for those children carrying a few extra pounds. “It’s really their level of fitness [that is associated with the better test scores], not their body mass index,” she said, citing previous research that agreed with that finding.

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