Children under the age of 10 need to be physically active for 60-85 minutes per day if they are to reduce their risk of developing heart disease later in life, a new study has found.

According to European scientists, the importance of physical activity in reducing the incidence of heart disease risk factors in children cannot be overstated.

However, while the link between physical activity and risk factors in children has been the focus of research for over 20 years, most of this research has looked at those over the age of 10.

The widely accepted consensus is that 60 minutes per day of moderate to vigorous activity is enough to improve the health of children, so the scientists decided to investigate this further in younger children.

They looked at over 3,100 European children aged between two and nine, calculating their risk of heart disease by analysing factors such as cholesterol levels and blood pressure.

They found that around 15% of the children had poor heart disease risk profiles. In other words, they were at an increased risk of going on to develop heart disease.

These unhealthy risk profiles were even found in children between the ages of two and six.

However, the scientists found that risks differed depending on age and gender.

They said that boys under the age of six need at least 70 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity every day, while boys aged between six and nine need at least 80 minutes per day.

Girls, on the other hand, need around 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity every day, irrespective of their age.

In both boys and girls, this physical activity should include at least 20 minutes of vigorous exercise each day.

"In clinical settings, practitioners should recommend that, in girls, the current guidelines of at least 60 minutes per day of physical activity of at least moderate intensity could be enough, but around 20 of these minutes should be of vigorous intensity.

"However in boys, 85 minutes per day of moderate to vigorous physical activity, including around 20 minutes vigorous physical activity, could be necessary to prevent the negative consequences ascribed to clustering of risk factors," the scientists concluded.

They added that the findings clearly show that a ‘one size fits all' policy is inappropriate when it comes to the physical activity of children.

Details of these findings are published in the journal, BMC Medicine.

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