Exercise Deficit Disorder in Youth: Thinking Outside The Sandbox

Avery Faigenbaum, Ed.D, FACSM: Jersey boy energizes the crowd

As a pediatric sports medicine specialist, I typically spend my days ministering to the maladies of the active child or adolescent; but as a public health advocate, I worry more about the other end of the spectrum:  the growing (pun intended), global pandemic of childhood underactivity and obesity.

The global problem of underactivity in youth is being investigated by many people.  One of the leaders in this field is a Jersey boy; no, not Jon Bon Jovi…… I have been a big fan of Dr. Avery Faigenbaum, from the College of New Jersey, for some time.  From his work investigating the safety of resistance training in children to his new focus on “Exercise Deficit Disorder” (EDD), his work has been an inspiration to me.

Last summer, I had the pleasure of working with him here in Columbus, Ohio, and we even got to record a session of Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s “Pediacast” where we discussed the problem of EDD.  This summer, I got to catch up with Dr. Faigenbaum at the American College of Sports Medicine meeting in Indianapolis.   Though he could probably bench press three of me, I successfully arm-wrestled him into doing a guest blog.  Just in time:  Dr. Faigenbaum is heading to Argentina in July as a guest professor.

And so before he can run away, it is with great pleasure that I present to the readership Dr. Faigenbaum’s blog post:  “Exercise Deficit Disorder in Youth:  Thinking Outside the Sandbox.”

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The pervasive reach of physical inactivity has now spread worldwide and some authors have appropriately described this issue as a “pandemic” (4). Levels of physical activity among modern-day youth are down while time spent watching television and surfing the Internet are up. Researchers from Canada recently assigned a letter grade of D- to physical activity levels in 5- to 17-year olds (1) and findings from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance survey indicate that one-third of high school students in the United States played video or computer games for 3 or more hours on an average school day (5). The decline and disinterest in physical activity appears to emerge early in life, and by the time students enter high school their sedentary habits are difficult to break. As a professor of pediatric exercise science, I am deeply concerned that regular physical activity has become a neglected dimension of health that has yet to garner the medical power and political clout of other pediatric and adolescent health issues such as cigarette smoking or super-sized beverages.

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