Exercise and children - Dan Exeter

Dr Dan Exeter talks about exercise and children - how much is too much?

Dan is a sports physican at Axis Sports Medicine in Auckland. He is Medical Director for Athletics New Zealand and was one of the doctors with the NZ team at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. He also has a senior lecturer role at the University of Auckland.

Topics

What are the current exercise guidelines for children?
When does exercise become harmful?
Is early specialisation in a single sport recommended? What age should this occur or is variety important.
What age is it safe for a child to lift weights? What load is appropriate and how do we give advice on this?
What are the stress or overuse injuries you see in children?
When should we refer? What are the red flags?
What simple advice should we be giving our children to prevent these injuries?

Take home messages

Exercise is great for children and to be encouraged.
Dont forget the role of play.
Take care with the volume of sport, especially around age 11.5 for girls and 13.5 for boys.
Choosing a single sport before the age of 12-14 is bad - overuse injuries.
Children aren't small adults, they get child-specific injuries.

Resources

Guidelines for children and young people aged 5 to 18 years Sport NZ

Patient Resources

Presenter

Dan Exeter

Sport and Exercise Physician

MBChB, MMedSci, FACSEP

Dan has active research interests in the areas of injury prevention and cardiac screening of athletes. His Master's degree investigated ECG screening of athletes and is also a reviewer for Heart journal in this field.

To contact Dan Click here.

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The Goodfellow Unit podcast is funded in part by the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners.