Louise Sallé 6:52 a.m., January 13, 2023

Less vitamin D, more diabetes and weakened cognitive and social abilities… While children spend nearly four hours a day in front of screens and go out less and less to play outside, health authorities are worried.

Children spend less and less time outdoors playing adventure, running in the woods or making friends in the park... While the WHO recommends one hour of physical activity a day, only half of boys and a third of girls, between the ages of 6 and 17, comply with this recommendation according to a study by Santé Publique France published in 2020. In addition, in 2015, nearly 4 out of 10 children never played outdoors on of school. 

In the digital age, physical inactivity has unfortunately become a scourge that is gaining more and more ground... With its share of consequences on the health of the youngest, both physical and psychological. 

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Heart attacks and metabolic disorders that occur earlier and earlier

Lack of light and vitamin D for bone growth, but also obesity and cardiovascular diseases… Children's health suffers from a lack of outdoor physical activity, leading to diabetes and cholesterol, explains Martine Duclos.

She is a professor of sports medicine at the University Hospital of Clermont-Ferrand, and president and founder of ONAPS, the National Observatory of Physical Activity and Sedentariness.

"This sedentary lifestyle, which manifests itself very early, explains why people have myocardial infarctions at younger and younger ages, and that metabolic disorders begin to set in at an increasingly early age," she says. .

Four hours a day in front of the screens

French children and adolescents spend an average of four hours a day in front of screens, increasing the number of cases of myopia.

Cognitive abilities are also weakening, is alarmed for his part by child psychiatrist Stéphane Clerget.

“We know that children who spend a lot of time on screens are children who have a poorer attention span,” he laments.

Weakened cognitive abilities and social skills

"In addition, children who move less, who are less active, will have poorer quality sleep. And that has consequences for memory and emotional regulation capacities", adds the doctor.

Playing outside, finally, also teaches the child to better manage the risks that surround him, to assert himself and to dare… Essential skills for his personal development.