Child Fitness – Helping Children Achieve Fitness Goals

Posted on 30. Jan, 2012 by admin in Fitness, Parenting

Your child is your prized possession and means more to you than anyone can imagine. Yet, there he sits – in front of the video game system, spending his days playing a game that you have no idea what the goal is, nor do you even attempt to get it. Or, perhaps your daughter is a pretty social girl, until she comes home from school. She likes to spend her time online, chatting away with her friends in a language that makes you wonder if she speaks a foreign tongue. This is today’s child and this is today’s largest problem.

As children move through the last decade, more and more of them are becoming sedentary in their lifestyle. It is easier to find a street that it is quiet now than it is to find one that has children playing a game of kickball or baseball. In fact, fewer children are becoming involved in organized sports. Many that do become involved do so because their parents make them. It all sounds so depressing, but in reality it is up to you, the parent, to make it change and to become something different. Why should you do so though?

The fact is that children are much more likely to face the onset of health problems that those entering into their middle years face. Some children are 10 to 20 pounds overweight. Others are as much as 100 pounds overweight. In either case, the onset of childhood diabetes is a large one. Or, perhaps it is high blood pressure that will cause them to need medications to monitor it. A variety of ailments can can plague the overweight child.

Why Does It Happen?

While most parents do not want to realize it, there are two ways children become overweight. One of them is that they do not eat a healthy diet. Filled with junk food and fatty foods, children have a hard time getting the right amount of calories and the nutrition that they need.

The second problem is physical activity, or more accurately, lack thereof. While their muscles are getting a workout in their fingers from playing that video game, it is unlikely that they are burning enough calories for it to justify the intake of food that they have. Therefore, with more calories coming in than can be used by the body, the body stores them as fat to use at a later time.

Most parents also do not realize that their child needs a solid amount of physical activity every day. That amount is high, but it does provide them with the best resources and tools to help them to fight off these illnesses and problems with their weight. For children aged 6 to 12 years old, the amount of physical activity they need is quite high.

The National Association for Sports and Physical Education recommends specific guidelines for exercise for your child. Children should be able to get at least the 60 minutes or more of physical activity per day. That is one full hour of running, playing or being otherwise physical. This amount is broken down into periods of 15 minutes or more each. Your child does not need to run laps for an hour, in other words! In addition to this, there should be no time during the day that the child is sedentary for more than two hours or more besides when they are sleeping.

As you can see, this is very demanding on the parent to manage, but there are ways to make it happen and most of the time you can do them right at your own home. What’s more, you need to be sure that when your child is getting 60 minutes of activity that is actually 60 minutes of movement, not five minute sprints around the baseball diamond and 40 minutes of sitting down. How can you manage this type of activity for your child? There are several ways to do just that.

Tips To Get Them Active

Many people believe that if they put their child into an organized sport they can count on their child getting the fitness that the child needs. The problem with this theory is that most kids do not play seven sports! Children that do participate in sports usually only have one day a week worth of practice and then one other day that they play the game. On those days, they may very well get the physical activity that they need, but that is only two out of the seven days that they need to move. Instead of planning on organized sports, then, consider other ways that your child can be more active.

Make It A Family Affair

A good way to show your child you are serious about physical fitness is simply to show them that you are doing it too! Most children learn from example before they learn from textbooks or preaching. What you do, they will do. Therefore, incorporate it into your daily routine with your child. When the child is up in the morning, give them a few activities to do before school. Then, after dinner that night, plan on a family walk or even a game of catch outdoors. Get them outdoors to cut the grass or to help with the yard work. Sure, it may not be fun, but it is physical stimulation that they need on a daily basis (and perhaps a valuable lesson to boot!).