Study: Exercise in school fails to thwart obesity

The increasing problem of obese children won't be reduced by more exercise in school, says a recent study. Instead, children who exercise in school tend to be more sedentary after school, while students who did not have school exercise tended to be more active. "In the end, a child will expend the same amount of energy, whether in school or out, suggesting that his level of activity is set by some kind of internal meter in the brain," The Associated Press reports, on the study led by British researcher Terry Wilkin.

However, Tim Lobstein, director of the International Association for the Study of Obesity's childhood-obesity program, says the study examines only one side of the issue. He says school-based exercise helps children love it later in life, "to set the thermostat, as it were, the activity-stat, at a high level." Wilkin studied 8- to 10-year-old children from 2003 to 2005, and was presented last week at the European Council on Obesity in Amsterdam. (Read more) In the U.S., rural children have a higher rate of obesity than their urban counterparts.