Football in schools helps lower blood pressure, improve balance
Why should boys have all the fun? With football that is.
What’s more, schools put football training on girls’ timetable, it comes with several added health advantages. These include lower blood pressure, stronger muscles, better balance and improved jumping performance. This is regardless of whether the girls have ever played football before.
These are the findings of a study of the FIFA 11 for Health in Europe exercise concept in Faroese schoolchildren. It was carried out by football researchers at the University of Southern Denmark, Department of Sports Science and Clinical Biomechanics.
The results of the study have just been published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports.
Teaching health on the football pitch improves 10-12-year-old girls’ muscle strength, muscle mass, balance and blood pressure
The study shows that teaching health on the football pitch improves 10-12-year-old girls’ muscle strength, muscle mass, balance and blood pressure, says Peter Krustrup, head of research and professor of sport and health sciences at the University of Southern Denmark.
The University of Southern Denmark joined with the University of the Faroe Islands in a study of 400 children at 12 Faroese schools in which the 5th-grade children played football for 45 minutes twice a week for 11 weeks.
The study is a follow-up to previous studies of FIFA 11 for Health in Europe. The concept, consisting of football training combined with health teaching, has been introduced to 10,000 Danish children and will now be further rolled out in all 98 municipalities in Denmark.
“Our previous studies have shown that the FIFA 11 for Health in Europe concept improves 10-12-year-old schoolchildren’s health profile, cognitive function and social well-being while increasing their understanding of physical activity, varied and healthy eating, hygiene and bad habits around tobacco and alcohol. Now we can add that this form of football, with the focus on ball games and small pitches, is very inclusive and produces great improvements in physical fitness and health profile in schoolgirls, even if they have no previous football experience,” says Krustrup.
