Message from the Associate Vice Chancellor for Clinical and Translational Science

We are at a true crisis point for childhood health in our country and around the globe.

Otherwise healthy children are at risk for lifetime illnesses, such as heart disease and stroke, simply because they are living increasingly sedentary lifestyles.

Children with serious health problems, even life-threatening diseases such as leukemia or sickle-cell anemia, are not getting the lifelong health benefits that  appropriate exercise can provide.

But the knowledge gap between what we know about the health benefits of exercise in childhood — and what we need to know — is huge.

Pediatric science has not focused research efforts on gaining fundamental information about how something as seemingly simple as exercise can advance health.