All about kids’ exercise-1

It was just the other day I met a friend of mine who told me that her son is very chubby and healthy; for all practical purposes I thought he was obese. On further enquiry I realized that he ate a lot of fast food and did very little exercise. I then told her the importance of physical activity for children and how it played a vital role in children turning out to be a healthy well balanced adults.

Being overweight and obese can have negative effects on a child’s health, cognitive development and therefore school attendance; so it is necessary that a child has plenty of physical exercise along with a balanced diet to be healthy and fit. It would be most appropriate now to discuss the amount of physical exercise a kid should have.

Experts recommend that every kid should have at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise daily; the full hour need not be in one stretch, but can be covered in installments. The effect of exercise is cumulative even if it is spread out during the day.

It is not necessary for all exercise to be traditional; it can even be the games that the kids play- like playing catch or chasing the dog around the backyard. The kid should be moving- provide for wide-ranging and fun exercises for the kid. The main indications that a kid has exercised enough are that he/she is breathing hard and sweating lightly.

Activities that a kid should do as form of exercise:

The physical activity or exercise for a kid can be divided into 3 types - aerobic, muscle-strengthening activities and those activities that strengthen the bones. Aerobic activities include riding bikes, walking briskly, playing tag, swimming and playing sports such as basketball and soccer. Muscle strengthening activities includes weight-bearing activities such as climbing trees, playing on a jungle gym and doing pushups. The third type is bone-strengthening activities such as skipping, hopping and running. Some of the activities could also be overlapping between the categories; for example gymnastics is both muscle-strengthening and bone-strengthening and jumping rope is both aerobic and bone-strengthening.

We will be discussing more aspects of exercise for children in 2 blogs that would follow. Happy exercising with your kids till then!