Field Notes

New US Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth Reveals Continued Low Levels of Physical Activity

The Physical Activity Alliance, the nation’s largest national coalition dedicated to advancing regular participation in physical activity, released the 2024 United States Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth. The overall physical activity grade for children and youth remained low at D-, the same grade it received in 2022, the last time a report was made.

The 2024 Executive Summary and Full Report are provided here.

The grade was derived from National Survey of Children’s Health and National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data that showed the following:

Only 20% to 28% of 6- to 17-year-olds meet the 60 minutes of daily physical activity recommended by the US Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans.
The proportion of children who meet the physical activity guidelines has decreased slightly since 2016, when these data were first available.

Amanda Staiano, PhD, director of the Pediatric Obesity and Healthy Behavior Laboratory at Pennington Biomedical, served as cochair of the report card committee, and Katie Spring, PhD, postdoctoral research fellow in the Pediatric Obesity and Healthy Behavior Laboratory at Pennington Biomedical, also served as a committee member.

The report card synthesizes the best available data from multiple nationally representative surveys to provide a comprehensive evaluation of physical activity among children and youth. It covers 11 indicators, individual state data, and recommendations for how grades can be improved. A letter grade is assigned to each indicator based on the evidence. Each grade reflects how well the United States is succeeding at providing children and youth opportunities and/or support for physical activity.

In Louisiana, half of the child population exceeds the screen-time recommendations and doesn’t get the recommended hours of sleep each night. In addition, less than one in five Louisiana youth meet the physical activity guidelines of an hour of physical activity every day.

Findings from the 2024 Report Card, the fifth iteration in the series that started in 2014, highlight the need for programs and policies to combat the rise in societal factors that interfere with children’s physical activity and healthy development.

“The findings in the 2024 Report Card highlight the need for programs and policies that aid in enhancing children’s physical activity and healthy development,” Staiano says. “This is why programs like Pennington Biomedical’s Greaux Healthy initiative are so vital for our youth. Greaux Healthy provides easily accessible products, tools, and resources tailored to meet children and families where they’re in both life and health, all based on years of our scientific evidence.”

The report card is an advocacy tool that provides accountability and a call to action for decision-makers regarding how parents, teachers, health professionals, community leaders, and policymakers can implement new initiatives, programs, and policies to improve the physical activity levels and health of children and youth.

According to the CDC, as of 2021, more than 40% of school-aged children and adolescents had at least one chronic health condition, such as asthma or obesity. In 2022, a report published in JAMA Pediatrics found that nearly one in three adolescents now meet the criteria for prediabetes, and the rate among 12- to 19-year-olds had more than doubled from 11% to 28% between 1999 and 2018.

The United States Report Card Research Advisory Committee responsible for developing this report card is a subcommittee of the National Physical Activity Plan, an initiative of the Physical Activity Alliance.

“We’re thankful to Amanda Staiano and Katie Spring for serving on the 2024 United States Report Card committee,” says John Kirwan, PhD, executive director of Pennington Biomedical. “Combating childhood obesity is a major focus of what we work on every day at Pennington, and it’s extremely important for the future of our children that programs and initiatives are implemented to help combat the frightening statistics that we’re now seeing. This report provides another wake-up call that we need to find new solutions and more effective ways to get our children moving again.”

Support for development of the 2024 United States Report Card was provided by Children’s Mercy Kansas City and the Center for Children’s Healthy Lifestyles & Nutrition.

“Children’s physical activity is highly influenced by factors within our communities,” explains Jordan Carlson, PhD, a professor of pediatrics at Children’s Mercy Kansas City and chair of the 2024 United States Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth. “Human bodies were designed to move and be active, but modern society has made life more sedentary. We need to reengineer our environments and routines to build activity back in. This means providing more opportunities for children to be active that are safe and enjoyable. Policymakers and other community leaders can support children’s health by carefully considering the important role all sectors of society play in removing barriers to physical activity.”

— Source: Pennington Biomedical Research Center

Antibodies in Breast Milk Provide Protection Against Common GI Virus

A study led by researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center found that breast milk provides protection against rotavirus, a common gastrointestinal disease that causes diarrhea, vomiting, and fever in infants. Babies whose mothers had high levels of specific antibodies in their breast milk were able to fend off the infection for a longer period than infants whose mothers had lower levels. The findings are expected to drive future research to improve infant health through optimized breastfeeding practices.

Published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the study also found significant differences in antibody profiles in breast milk between mothers in high-income countries and those in low- and middle-income countries. Researchers analyzed human milk samples from 695 women in Finland, the United States, Pakistan, Peru, and Bangladesh and measured specific IgA and IgG antibodies, which are common antibodies produced in breast milk, against 1,607 proteins from 30 pathogens.

The research, led by Kirsi Jarvinen-Seppo, MD, PhD, a professor in the division of allergy and immunology at UR Medicine Golisano Children’s Hospital, tracked antibody levels and kinetics over time to analyze antibody responses to a wide range of respiratory, diarrheal, and sepsis pathogens in human milk. The study’s primary aim was to understand the protective properties of these antibodies and how they vary across different geographic and economic regions.

“We would expect to find differences in antibody levels in different countries due to different diseases circulating among areas of the world, but this is one of the first times that there’s been a head-to-head comparison for dozens of pathogens across several continents,” Jarvinen-Seppo says. “It was encouraging to see such a clear link between higher antibody levels and a delay to rotavirus infection, and this was consistently observed among an independent validation cohort.”

Other notable findings from the study include the following:

Milk from women in low- and middle-income countries had higher levels of IgA and IgG antibodies against various intestinal and respiratory pathogens compared with milk from high-income countries. This difference was particularly notable for pathogens such as Shigella and pneumococcus, which are major contributors to morbidity and mortality in young children.
Higher BMI was associated with lower antibody levels, which went against expectations.

“The variation in antibody profiles between regions highlights the impact of economic and environmental factors on maternal immunity,” Jarvinen-Seppo says.

In addition to Rotavirus findings, the discovery that a higher BMI was associated with lower antibody counts in breast milk was also unexpected.

“We had anticipated that underweight mothers might have lower antibody levels due to poorer nutritional status,” Jarvinen-Seppo says. “Due to rising obesity rates worldwide, this could be a significant finding, but this is preliminary, and additional research is needed since this is the first time this has been measured.”

“While the data on rotavirus protection is compelling, the geographical and BMI-related variations highlight areas where further research is essential. The study sets the stage for additional investigations that could lead to better understanding and interventions for improving infant health globally,” Jarvinen-Seppo says.

— Source: University of Rochester Medical Center