Does Exercise Increase or Decrease Pain Reports in Normal Weight or Overweight/Obese Kids?

Newswise — The increase in overweight/obesity rates commonly seen in youth is associated with increased risk for pain. Vigorous exercise relieves pain for healthy adults, but whether this same effect applies to adolescents is not known. This study examined laboratory pain in normal weight and overweight/obese adolescents, both before and after they ran to exhaustion on a treadmill. All of the adolescents were able to run on the treadmill until exhaustion. They reported decrease in pain after exercise and this response was not affected either by weight status or physical fitness. Thus, normal weight and overweight/ obese adolescents of different physical fitness levels obtained pain relieving benefits from exercise. Whether similar results occur in children with other health problems or following different types of exercise is not known.

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