What do you think of putting treadmill desks in schools?

[Taem]

In regards to health, I assume if it can be proven irrevocably that sitting for these long periods without movement was the direct cause of obesity - to a far greater extent than the foods children eat - then schools could be held liable for illnesses caused by obesity. One of the articles I linked to shows that studies have proven this to be the case:

In 2010, a team led by Alpa Patel of the American Cancer Society in Atlanta analyzed the data from a 14-year study of 123,000 middle-aged adults. When they compared mortality rates of those who spent six hours a day or more sitting and those who reported three or fewer hours — and when they took into account other factors such as diet — they found something surprising: Extra time on the couch was associated with a 34 percent higher mortality rate for women and 17 percent higher for men in the 14 years after they joined the study. It is not clear why there is such a big sex difference.

In another study, a team at the University of Queensland in Australia analyzed data on the television viewing habits of 8,800 Australians. They calculated that each hour of television correlated with 22 minutes off the average life expectancy of an adult older than 25. In other words, people who watch six hours of television a day face the prospect of dying, on average, about five years younger than those who don’t watch any.

I think that, perhaps just throwing out articles that are mostly commentary, despite the references in the articles pointing to scientific studies, does not have quite the same effect as pointing directly toward actual studies on the issue:

More physical exercise in a day = less health risks:
Physical activity and clustered cardiovascular risk in children

The more obese children are, the less they expend energy:
Total energy expenditure and physical activity in young Scottish children
This falls into my, 30-minutes of exercise a day during PE does NOT cut it!!!

Proof that inactivity causes disease and death:
Health benefits of physical activity: the evidence

So, it's clear children need exercise, but the real question is, "how much exercise is enough," and so far regarding health, the answer is the more the better! The CDC recommends 60-minutes of exercise a day (bare minimum), but some schools acknowledge our youths get a mere 15-30-minutes worth of exercise during PE, assuming they actually participate.

All the current scientific studies being done suggest that sitting for long periods of time endangers your life far into the future. To bring this together, it's clear the case can be made - with further study -that our school children are currently not getting the required exercise in a day needed to live a healthy life.

I'd be interested in seeing the effect on education. It wouldn't take a very large productivity loss in education to negate any positive effect this might have on health.

Now to address your concerns that the evidence presented in my previously linked articles, in regards to exercise improving ones intelligence, is merely conjecture based on current theories more than actual fact. The following articles prove that the more you exercise, the smarter you get, and more you do it when you're young, the smarter you will remain your entire life:

Early childhood exercise grants greater cognition at old age

The more physical stimulation at a young age gives a higher IQ in the teens

Exercise and Children’s Intelligence, Cognition, and Academic Achievement

Effects of Aerobic Exercise on Overweight Children's Cognitive Functioning

Exercise when older improves cognition
I linked to this mainly to show that at ANY age, the more exercise you get, the smarter you get!

Exercise is brain food!
An interesting article suggesting a highly strenuous exercise might actually be detrimental to learning due to added stress, and that a moderate exercise is the best. This is a good case for continual exercise versus the standard short, 30-minute burst of strenuous activity one might receive during PE. However I can counter that argument with this article that basically says doing a brisk run in 30-minutes as opposed to the standard PE curriculum resulted in net intelligence increase:

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/hea/5/3/197/


So its proven that the benefits of health and intelligence are linked to increased exercise, however the quality of the workout remains ambiguous in regards to being moderate over a long period, or strenuous over a short time frame. Also, these articles have failed to answer the question of "how much" exercise is the right amount? The CDC conforms with the 850-peer reviewed study citing 60-minutes a day minimum: (Link), but there has been enough scientific studies done that prove that the more exercise one gets, the better the positive health and cognitive impacts are, and yet with our current obesity problem, it's clear the 30-minutes our children get in school is not near enough, however I can find no scientific articles linking extended levels of exercise (above 60-minutes) in middle-school/high-school aged children with increased intelligence, even though all scientific studies done so far concede the more exercise you get, the smarter you will be. I believe a correlation of the two subjects can be drawn, however to be fair on this subject, I did read this article that gave me pause for thought:

6-11% decrease in fine motor skills while using treadmill desk
Clearly, more studies must be done on this subject before any hard conclusions can be drawn. I know that's what you were saying all along, but I guess I had to put it down in writing for myself to come to the same conclusion you did in a single sentence .

What really got me thinking down this path was my child had great difficulty learning in school. His grades were abysmal and he was on the edge of being held back, so naturally, we got him a tutor who was also a physical therapist. She worked with my son and quickly realized he had a lot of extra energy, so instead of having him sit in a chair, got him an exercise ball to sit on. Well, it turns out this Phd certified instructor also knew what she was talking about, and many studies have been done showing improved cognition with students on bouncing balls in schools. Imagine that, after countless centuries doing manual labor our entire lives, us humans do better staying active then sitting in one spot all day?!? Here's a short article on it, first link I found in google, but if you're interested, you can do some research on it yourself: Bouncy Balls. Anyway, he improved greatly and now does just fine in school. I almost forgot about this until recently reading that even if you exercise at the gym everyday, sitting at a desk job can still shave off years of your life.

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Here's an addendum you should make - hook up all those treadmills to generators to meet the electricity needs of the school.

Lol, I love it! Let me indulge a bit in the satire with you... By why stop there? Think of all that wasted energy using those writing utensils, and imagine for a moment energy collecting devices affixed to the tops of all writing utensils that, when jiggled, produced a small electrical charge capable, by the end of a students school day, of recharging a phone or powering a calculator? Now that's using your fingers!