According to a study, adding an extra hour to Britain's daytime will increase its children's engagement in moderate to highly vigorous physical activities.
Using accelerometers, the researchers compared the physical activity of 23,000 five to 16 year old children who reside in Britain to those who are based in America, Australia, Brazil, Denmark, Estonia, Norway, Switzerland and Madiera (a Portuguese Island).
Data collected established that children in countries where daytime is longer gets 15 to 20 percent more physical activity than those who are based in countries with less daytime.
Also, researchers have found out that the same co-relation between daytime and physical activity in children stands in the comparison between summer and winter. Such that children have engage in more physical activities during summer months where daytime is longer than in winter months where there is less day time.
As it is in most countries, children are most likely to go out and play from the late afternoon to early in the evening. When fall and the winter season draws near this time during the day gets shortened and darkness comes earlier. This disrupts playtime and results in less physical activity during the season of fall and winter, especially in the latter.
Aside from getting more time for outdoor play after school, the fitness and overall health improvement in the children of Britain will also be attributed to additional walking time in daylight savings. It has been found out that a shift of clocks even for just an hour will add 200 walking daylight hours every year.
Increasing physical activity has been found to be highly beneficial in a child's physical development. Such that these findings on the relationship between time shifts are seen by many to be helpful in raising children who are not only physically fit but are more socially well too.
