"Study: When kids become teens, they get sluggish," by LINDSEY TANNER, AP Medical Writer (warning, contains fearmongering)
While 90 percent of 9-year-olds get a couple of hours of exercise most days, fewer than 3 percent of 15-year-olds do. ...I've seen a few critical comments on this study along the lines of "Teens have more responsibilities," "Schools make children hate exercise," and so on. But what I'm wondering is — if somewhere between 10 and 15 is the magic cut-off point where children become less active, has anyone asked whether there might be a biological cause, something to do with puberty? Perhaps the body says to itself (via hormones) “We have to save some of this energy for reproduction now.”
The ... study, appearing in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, tracked about 1,000 U.S. children at various ages, from 2000 until 2006. ...