With the dawn of new technological gadgets, many children have become less active and a sedentary lifestyle is not only common among adults but it is spreading among children too. To make the situation, even more, worse, the culture of fast foods has also made children obese and according to CDC, the prevalence of obesity is about 18.5% in adolescents aged 2-19 years and it has affected about 13.7 million children and adolescents in the United States. Researches have shown that there are great chances that obese children will become obese adults in the future. And this obesity can give birth to major illnesses such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, hypertension, stresses, and cancer. This is why it’s very important to encourage your children to exercise for keeping them fit from a young age. When adults talk about exercise, they normally think about working out in the gym, running on a treadmill, doing yoga, or lifting some weights. But kids exercise in the form of playing some games like soccer, attending dancing classes, or riding a bicycle. The purpose of this article is to provide a broad overview of the benefits that exercise can offer to children.
Some eminent health benefits of physical activities for your children:
Benefits of exercise for physical health
Besides saving your children from obesity-related chronic ailments, physical activities make your children strong. When a child does some kind of physical activity like cycling his muscles, heart, lungs, and bones become strong. Moreover, regular exercise of some sort helps develop your child’s fundamental movement skills (i.e. physical literacy). An active child will be able to keep healthy body weight. Physical activities are considered natural painkillers that can ease cramps and back pain. Research shows that exercise has also a good impact on the rapid growth of your child. Lastly, a fit child is less likely to incur any injury while jumping or doing some other physical activity.
Changes in the brain
Exercise instills positive thinking in adults and children alike and there are shreds of evidence to support the fact that aerobic exercise can help improve mood and behavior in children and adults. Also, physical activities improve cognition in children and adults by generating new brain cells. Active children have more sharp and retentive memories than less active children. Physical activities improve motor skills (such as hand-eye coordination), thinking and problem-solving abilities, attention skills, and learning aptness. These skills come in hand to benefit the school performance of active kids. Furthermore, exercise can change brain chemistry, and specifically the levels of certain neurotransmitters that might help improve an individual’s self-regulation. When brain health and self-regulation, the ability to control behavior, is improved the children can function better in the classroom.
Ameliorates emotional and mental health
Childhood is an age when even small things like losing a video game or missed watching a cartoon show are enough to generate feelings of depression and anxiety. If your child has any symptoms of off mood, physical activity would be the best mood booster. Endorphins ‘feel-good’ chemicals are released when anyone does some kind of physical activity. These chemicals will help to improve mood, energy levels, and even sleep among adolescents. All these positive changes help to enhance the self-confidence and resilience in kids. Moreover, physical activities often give your children new friends and game partners. If you are a child is feeling lonely and find it hard to make friends, group exercises or games are the best remedies to make them more social. Additionally, most children enjoy dancing, jumping, walking running, and playing and want to continue enjoying being active throughout their life. Knowing about their bodies and abilities through these activities boosts their confidence and self-esteem.
How can you make your children active and curb sedentary behavior among them?
Choosing an activity suitable and in accordance with your child’s interest:
First of all, find a list of activities that your child actually enjoys because these activities will keep him engaging and will help your child avail all those fitness-related perks. Then choose the activity that is suitable for the age of your child because a strenuous activity instead of doing good can injure your child.
Be a role model for your descendants:
Children always to imitate their parents. They consider their parents a role model and want to become like them. If your kids see you doing physical activities, they definitely want to do that. Present yourself a good role model for your children to make them active adolescents. Furthermore, participate with them in some physical activities like sports. When you play with your kids while wearing comfortable workout shorts, your children enjoy the sport and push themselves to play better than you. Besides making your kids healthy, this activity will give you the opportunity to spend some quality time with your children.
See Also: 10 Best at Home Workouts to lose weight
Invite their friends:
Inviting the friends of your kids for some game will make your children enjoy that activity even more. You can invite their whole family to make it more interesting. When your child sees how fun it is to be able to play that game better than others, a feeling of practicing harder inculcates in them. Also, this practice will embolden the bond of parent-child and friends-friends among you all.
Involve kids in daily house chores:
Children usually love to help their parents in daily household activities like washing clothes, dog or car, cooking food, cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, etc. Inviting them in such things will not only make them active and healthy but will provide you a lot of help.
Plan vacations to some hill station for hiking:
Going on a family vacation will make your kids excited and if you do there some family physical activities like hiking, off-road cycling, kayaking, camping, or snorkeling, it will add so much fun to your trip. Kids will enjoy exploring new places in the company of their parents and you as a parent should teach them to appreciate nature while enjoying the mesmerizing landscapes. There are great chances that the activities you try on vacation might even become the hobbies your family enjoys for years to come.
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