Teenagers with sedentary lifestyles may want to start hitting the gym, as a study on MedicalNewsToday.com says that low muscular strength can be an indicator of a lot of undesirable conditions such as obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and even depression.

Researchers at the University of Granada in Spain, the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, and the University of Helskinki in Finland underwent a massive study which collated data from 1,142,599 male teenagers from Sweden from ages 16 to 19, who were followed-up for the next 24 months.

The results showed that teenagers who exhibited low muscular strength had a 65 percent greater risk of developing depression and have a 30 percent increase in risk of committing suicide before the age of 55. Low muscualr strength may also be an indicator of an early death caused by cardiovascular diseases.

Encourage your teens to ditch a sedentary lifestyle and to start getting physical. The study concludes that muscular strength in one’s childhood and teenage years “is a powerful predictor of early mortality,” so they better take care of their bodies while they're young.

(Photo by Usodesita via Flickr Creative Commons)