"Our greatest window of opportunity to enhance bone strength and ultimately reduce the risk of osteoporosis is during childhood, before the capacity to build bone diminishes," Pollock said. "One of the best things you can do for bone development and general health is exercise."

"Children have a lot of potential and a whole lot of time to make positive changes," echoed Dr. Catherine Davis, clinical health psychologist at the Georgia Prevention Institute and study co-author whose research has shown that regular physical activity reduces children's body fat and diabetes risk and even improves learning. "If you could patent exercise as a drug, somebody would be really, really rich."

Next steps include learning more about how abdominal fat impairs bone mass, including looking at the activity of cells that make and destroy bone - the bone makers should be more active in children - as well as vitamin D and vitamin K metabolism.

Source: Medical College of Georgia