r/science • u/Wagamaga • 1h ago
Health Higher daily step counts linked to fewer mental health problems in early adolescence. The study gives us some of the clearest evidence yet that even an everyday, low-cost, accessible measures of physical activity like daily step count is tied to how adolescent brains and mental health develop
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/11461969
u/LibertyDochas 1h ago
Is it because of the walking, or is it because going out and being social often requires walking? Or perhaps effects from both?
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u/DryRelationship1330 1h ago
Or your social network, or your suburban life that makes walking easier, or the condition of your knees and ankles that makes walking feasible, or the fact you have time to walk, meaning less family or job stress or or or or or or this distant correlation crap is nonsense
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u/Kadde- 1h ago
Nope definitely just walking. My mental would probably be in the gutter the last year of unemployment if I didn’t take 2 walks everyday usually 2500-3000 steps each walk.
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u/LibertyDochas 59m ago
I’m happy for you, but I don’t think your experience proves that social interaction absolutely does not also play a role in this study of children.
Per the link: “This is an observational study, so it can't show that walking more directly improves mental health.”
I believe walking has a positive impact. There are other studies that show a positive correlation between physical activity and positive mental health. But I also think that there could be an effect from being more social. I would bet that an interaction term of social activity along with physical activity would show the strongest effect over just walking or just socializing. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a difference between someone who walks on a treadmill alone in their home and someone who goes for a turn about the neighborhood.
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u/mwallace0569 1h ago
yeah i’m wondering if it’s partly because they spend less time on a screen overall?
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u/DryRelationship1330 1h ago
These correlations are so spurious. There are N number of causal scenarios between steps and health outcomes it makes statements like this meaningless.
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u/InTheEndEntropyWins 1h ago
There are plenty of causal mechanisms and RCT studies to support studies like this.
Systematic reviews with meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials...Aerobic exercises, including jogging, swimming, cycling, walking, gardening, and dancing, have been proved to reduce anxiety and depression.3 These improvements in mood are proposed to be caused by exercise-induced increase in blood circulation to the brain and by an influence on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and, thus, on the physiologic reactivity to stress.3 This physiologic influence is probably mediated by the communication of the HPA axis with several regions of the brain, including the limbic system, which controls motivation and mood; the amygdala, which generates fear in response to stress; and the hippocampus, which plays an important part in memory formation as well as in mood and motivation. In conclusion, PA is effective for improving depression and anxiety across a very wide range of populations. All PA modes are effective, and higher intensity is associated with greater benefit. https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2023/03/02/bjsports-2022-106195
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u/SaltZookeepergame691 1h ago
The existence of one causal pathway that exerts a small effect is very much not the same as being able to say that one causal pathway is solely or even mainly at play in observational data like this.
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u/Wagamaga 1h ago
Every extra walk to school, kickabout in the park or trip to the shops could be doing more for teenage mental health than first thought, according to new research tracking thousands of adolescents in the US.
The study, led by King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, working with the University of Massachusetts Amherst, tracked 5,515 adolescents taking part in the US Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study.
Participants wore Fitbit devices for three weeks around age 11 to 12. A year later, researchers checked in on their mental health, using the Child Behaviour Checklist, a widely used questionnaire completed by the young people and their parents that measures symptoms such as anxiety, low mood and behavioural problems, and compared the results against how many steps each teenager had been taking.
The more adolescents walked, the fewer mental health problems they had a year later, and the benefit didn't level off at any point the researchers could measure. Teenagers who took under 5,000 steps a day had the most symptoms; those averaging around 8,000 had fewer; and those hitting 12,000 or more had the fewest of all.
Adolescents with the highest step counts also showed slightly thicker brain tissue in two areas involved in movement and in regulating emotion, and this difference helped explain part of the link to better mental health. There was no link found between step count and how well adolescents did at school.
Dr Divyangana Rakesh, Senior Lecturer in Neuroscience and Psychology, King’s College London, and senior author of the study, said:
"This study gives us some of the clearest evidence yet that even an everyday, low-cost, accessible measures of physical activity like daily step count is tied to how adolescent brains and mental health develop. What's striking is that we don't see this benefit levelling off in the observed range, even among the most active young people in our sample."
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2854698
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u/InTheEndEntropyWins 1h ago
The brain is part of the body just like everything else and needs good diet, sleep and exercise to function properly. Exercise increases levels of BDNF, increases brain volume, improves brain connectivity, improves brain vascularity, improves brain mitochondrial health, lactate levels(which are healthy for the brain), SGK1 levels, etc. all of which are linked to mental health.
Another way to think about it, is someone who isn't physically active, they 100% have a biologically impaired brain, and it wouldn't be a surprise such a biologically impaired brain shows up as mental health issues.
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u/HistoryAndScience 1h ago
Movement makes you feel better. Idk why people are consistently slackjawed when these studies come out. Moving releases endorphins, strengthens your muscles (including your heart), and just feels good. It certainly beats sitting there doing nothing
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u/WheyTooMuchWeight 1h ago
Correlation not causation….
Right spirit, but not great science.
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u/Extreme_Pudding3226 23m ago
Virtually every study establishes correlation. Causation is determined by looking at the totality of evidence. It's very hard to design a study that establishes more than just causation.
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u/earthless1990 1h ago
Higher mental health problems are then linked to a lower daily step count. The causal direction runs from mental health toward daily step count, not vice versa.
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u/thesentienttoadstool 5m ago
My mom made me walk around the block whenever preteen me was acting like a preteen.
I am now thirty and some days I think to myself “You’re acting like a b*tch. You need to go on a walk.” And it helps
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