Exercise is important for our bodies. Not only does it shape and grow our muscles, but it is also useful for shaping and growing our skeletons as well. In the last decade or so, researchers have discovered that babies’ bodies can change and respond to exercise and loading the same way adults’ bodies can. Researchers studied this idea by observing and comparing how adults and toddlers walk using 3D imagery, motion sensors, and force plates. Researchers observed that when adults walked, their knees were underneath their center of mass, which allowed them to lift one foot up and stay balanced on their standing leg. Most of their force was angled from front-to-back. This resulted in their bones forming a teardrop shape.
When the toddlers were observed, their legs just went straight down from their thighs to the knees to the feet, resulting in them having a really wide base to support themselves with. Researchers specifically wanted to measure the front-to-back force and the side-to-side force in toddlers. It was concluded that during this brief period of development, a baby’s body is laying down more bone on the sides of their legs in order to resist the back and forth movements, resulting in the baby having more oval-shaped bones than teardrop-shaped bones.
However, once babies do stand up and start walking around more frequently, the shape of their skeleton will change. In essence, this reaffirms that babies need to exercise as early as possible in order to maintain healthy muscles and skeletons as they continue to grow.
