Fact #1 The bigger the dose of exercise, the more it can pay off in academic achievement. In a 2007 study in the Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, researchers found that children ages 7 - 11 who exercised for 40 minutes daily after school had greater academic improvement than same-aged kids who worked out for just 20 minutes. Fact #2 Recently researchers in kinesiology and neuroscience at the University of Illinois found interesting results in how exercise affects the child's brain. The brain's frontal lobes, which are thought to play a major role in cognitive control, judgment, reasoning and self-regulation, keep growing throughout the school years. Therefore exercise could help ramp up the development of a child's brain as well as impact behavior. Fact #3 Studies suggest exercise plays a big part in the production of new brain cells, particularly in the part of the brain heavily involved in learning and memory skills. Exercise spurs the brain to produce more of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor - BDNF - which has been called "Miracle-Gro for the brain." Fact #4 A study published in 2009 in Neuroscience found that children had more accurate responses on standardized tests when they were tested after moderate exercise, as opposed to being tested after 20 minutes of sitting still. Movement builds better brains!
