It’s 8.30pm and 15-year-old Sara Michel has returned home after her maths tutorial humming the Tamil hit “Leo Das Ek Badamaash” inside her head. Living her life between school exams and class 10 board exam preparation tutorials, this Chennai teenager has no mobile phone, has given up singing and has no time to walk in the park. It’s just the long hours sitting at the desk or in front of the TV, her only shot at rest. “But it’s the daily 15-minute dance break at school that gets me going, refreshes my mind and helps me improve my studies,” she says.
That dance class is an experimental form called THANDAV (Taking High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) and Dance to Adolescents for Victory over Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs)). The routine, developed as part of a study by Dr Ranjit Anjana Mohan of the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation and tested on 23 girls aged between 10 and 17, could help curb sedentary behavior among school-going teenagers and improve their metabolism. It did so as young girls and women signed up for live sessions or online classes at MDRF.
“Given the high burden of non-communicable diseases in India, we felt the need to reduce sedentary behavior in the early years. One in four teenagers is obese. They are so bogged down by the pressure of studying and racing past competitive exams that any physical activity seems negotiable. Yet these early years are about forming habits and laying the foundation for good health. So we decided to choose a routine that would not take much time, could easily fit into school schedules or even at home and still keep them fit, trim and active,” she says.
What is Thandava?
Dr. Mohan’s team mixed HIIT (high-intensity interval training) routines — which involve short bursts of intense activity followed by cooldown time — with dance moves set to popular songs from Bollywood, Mollywood and Tollywood. “Doing it for 10 minutes three times a week gives you all the metabolic benefits of running 60 minutes every day of the week. When fitness becomes fun, you don’t see them as a physical activity as a drill,” she says.
HIIT regimens have been proven to reduce body fat mass, weight loss, and improve cardiovascular fitness in both adults and adolescents. Studies have shown that girls achieve an almost 80 percent heart rate during a thandav session. “A faster heart rate during exercise helps your body move oxygen and blood to your muscles more efficiently, which helps you burn more calories, lower cholesterol and improve your cardiovascular fitness,” says Dr Mohan.
The 10-minute HIIT routine consists of four loops on four hit tracks with two minutes of high-energy (80-90 percent heart rate) to 30-second low cooldown (50-60 percent heart rate) moves. . The movements are choreographed in a simple and repetitive manner so that they can be done in a loop without too much strain.
As the randomized controlled trial awaits publication, Dr Mohan is pleased with the results of the move to larger trials. She says all the teenage girls reported weight loss, endurance and agility in just two to three months, despite the time spent on schoolwork.
“Adolescents should not have more than three hours of dependent time. But according to studies, sitting for 10 hours is alarming news because the body remains motionless for almost half the day!…” says Dr. Mohan.
Sarah’s mother Sheba Rosario, who was worried about her daughter’s “zero activity” level and her weight gain, noticed a big difference in her physical appearance and her concentration level. “There was a time when Sara was lazy. She couldn’t make it to her school’s 7 o’clock basketball class and slept late. Balancing school and NEET practice classes three times a week, she was pushing herself. She was often sitting on a chair at her desk or on the couch in front of the TV. I was really worried when she missed her period once, probably due to stress. The new dance routine has helped her relax and concentrate better,” she recalls.
Why sedentary behavior is a problem for Indian teenagers
Dr. Mohan conducted this small study as a follow-up to his larger study that mapped sedentary behavior in adolescents between 11 and 19. It was part of a larger eight-month report from the International Physical Activity and Environment Network (IPEN) and tracked. 6,000 teenagers worldwide. It shows how teenagers in India spend eight to 10 hours a day doing sedentary activities like watching television and playing video games, which are also linked to obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, bone, mental and reproductive health problems. in their adult years. However, in India, students used fewer devices – an average of 1.2 electronic devices in the bedroom and 0.5 personal electronic devices – compared to Western nations.
“Adolescents should not have more than three hours of dependent time. But according to studies, sitting for 10 hours is alarming news because the body doesn’t move for nearly half the day! I hear many parents telling me that their child is studying 10 hours a day. Their leisure time is also sitting, playing, chatting, which are passive activities,” says Dr Mohan.
Why are young Indians not exercising?
It wasn’t just an obsession with screen time that led to sedentary and largely indoor behavior. “This was partly due to the lack of walkable neighborhoods and parks that discouraged them from outdoor activities. Other issues were safety (especially for girls), traffic jams around public spaces and crime,” says Dr Mohan.
According to the study, girls living in neighborhoods with safe spaces close to home were less likely to engage in sedentary activities. “Another big problem is that our parks are designed to be used by adults for their walks and runs or by children. They are not designed for teenage group activities or ball games. The teenage years are an impressionable period in a person’s life and group activities are largely peer-led. Decisions are. So we should have an open space or court for cricket, basketball, badminton,” suggests Dr. Mohan. The study showed that teenagers in more walkable neighborhoods had less screen time.
So Dr. Mohan designed a fitness module that could easily be co-opted into the school routine. “Ideally, there should be one-hour physical training classes. But this is the class that is dropped to accommodate one or two additional classes in Class IX and X. But it is possible to squeeze 15 to 20 minutes into Thandav. We saw the students having so much fun with their friends in the exercise-dance routine. “Study participants reported that after doing the 10-minute routine, they cooled down more easily (an indication of improved fitness) and their bodies felt much lighter and more relaxed,” she says.
After a three-month Thandav session, participants said they exercised more often and ate cleaner. It improved their flexibility and gave them a break from their monotonous routine. It taught them to push beyond their limits and do more and gave them confidence.
“Recommendations included adding new songs, teaching new loops, reaching out to a larger number of people and inviting them to joint performances. One girl told us that she had taught thandav to at least 10 children and told everyone in her apartment how it was a fun way to keep fit,” says Dr Mohan.