A study led by the University of Hong Kong indicated that aerobic exercise reduces symptoms of depression in adolescents.
The report was published in the scientific journal ‘JAMA Pediatrics’ and contains 21 analyzes with 2,441 participants. The biggest changes occurred in people older than 13 years.
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Depression in early adolescence is linked to truly alarming causes such as social functioning, poor mental and physical health, and suicide.
And it is that it is young people who must face this great problem directly and many times, without any type of professional help. This is the second most common mental disorder that occurs in children and adolescents.
“Lack of time, fear of stigma, parental mistrust of the therapist, and lack of perception of the need for treatment can be strong barriers to child psychotherapy, while adverse effects, such as sleep disturbances, Gastrointestinal upset and even suicide have been associated with the use of antidepressants in pediatric patients,” warns the study from Hing Kong University.
worrying figures
Young people who experience depressive symptoms at an early age are at fairly high risk of developing mental disorders in adulthood. The percentage of young people who present these characteristics is 67%.
“The main outcome was depressive symptoms measured using validated depression scales post-intervention and at follow-up. Twenty-one studies with 2,441 participants were included, including 1,148 boys (47%) and 1,293 girls (43%).
The virtues of physical activity
According to the study, physical activity in minors shows promise as an alternative approach to depression treatment.
The experts even pointed out that performing aerobic exercises is a safer and more accessible way than other treatments for depression.
Doctors maintain that, considering that depression is a disease that involves the whole body, an excellent strategy is to ask patients to engage in physical activity in order to generate positive results associated with the reduction of symptoms that have the person in that condition.