26 Exercise Really Does Make You Clever
26 锻炼让你更聪明
ou want to boost your child’s results at school, you could do a lot worse than ensuring that they do plenty of exercise. Scientists have already shown that physical activity can make you brainier. But a team in America has used scans to show that an important part of the brain actually grows in children who are fit. These youngsters tend to be more intelligent and have better memories than those who are inactive.
如果想让你的孩子在学校的表现更加优异一些，你就应该让他们多锻炼身体。研究表明，活泼好动的孩子的大脑”更聪明“。美国的一组研究人员已经通过扫描的方法显示出活泼的孩子大脑中的一个重要部分比不喜欢运动的儿童发育要快。比起不爱运动的孩子，喜欢运动的小孩学习成绩更好、各方面表现也更优异。
Scientists also found that one of the most important parts of their brains was 12 percent larger than those of unfit youngsters. They believe that encouraging children to take exercise from a very young age could help them do better at school later. Researchers from the University of Illinois, in the U.S., studied the brains of 49 children aged nine and ten using a magnetic resonance imaging scan, a technique which provides very detailed pictures of organs and tissues in the body.
实验证明，聪明孩子的大脑中重要部分的体积要比身材过胖、或者不健康的孩子大12%。研究者相信，从小就鼓励孩子们运动可以帮助他们在学校生活中发展得更好。美国一所大学运用“磁共振”来进行实验，实验对象为49 名9—10 岁的儿童，这种技术可以精确的显示出人体器官以及各个组织的具体情况。
They also tested the fitness levels of the children by making them run on a treadmill. The scientists found that the hippocampus, a part of the brain responsible for memory and learning, was around 12 percent larger in the fitter youngsters.
科学家通过让孩子们在跑步机上跑步来测量它们的健康水平。大脑海马区负责记忆和学习，科学家们发现体力好的孩子中的“大脑海马区”比体力不好的孩子要大12%。
Professor who led the study said the findings had important implications for encouraging individuals to take part in sport from a young age. “We knew that experience and environmental factors and socioeconomic status all impact brain development,” he said. “If you get some lousy genes from your parents, you can’t really fix that, and it’s not easy to do something about your economic status. But here ’s something that we can do something about.”
实验的带头人说，研究的结果证实了让孩子在年幼的时候加强身体锻炼的重要性。“我们知道‘经验’、‘环境’以及社会因素都会对大脑的发展产生影响。如果从父母那里遗传得到的基因不够好，你对此毫无办法。如果身在经济条件不好的家庭，你也无能为力。但是通过鼓励孩子多运动，我们至少可以让他们通过后天的锻炼来寻求进步。”