Children Fit

Are Your Children Fit?

With the increase in technology these days affecting children at an ever younger age, there are many children who are not fit. Instead of running and playing, they spend hours sitting, first at school and then at home playing games with their electronic devices, watching television or plugged into music if they are older. But children need exercise to remain – or get – fit, just the same as adults.

It may even be more important for children to be fit than it is for adults. If children remain in poor health, they have many more years to develop some of those bad diseases such as diabetes and many more years for those diseases to cause even more problems such as blindness or kidney failure, like diabetes does.

In addition, children who don’t get enough exercise are not only unfit, they are also often obese. This causes a great deal of emotional trauma, especially if they are bullied or teased about their weight. And of course, it is unhealthy for them and can lead to early onset of high cholesterol and heart disease, among other things.

So how do you get children out of the house to have exercise and become more fit and healthy? It needs a change in your lifestyle priorities. Find something your child loves doing and help them to do it. Little children usually like to play on equipment such as a trampoline or a slide. Both will give them exercise. They like riding bikes and scooters or skateboards as they get older. It is up to you as a parent to provide them with the opportunity to do so.

This may take time away from what you like to do, but if you rearrange your priorities it can be done. Here are some things they can do – and so can you.

  • Take them to the park or go cycling with them
  • Get them to join Little Athletics or go swimming
  • Encourage them to play outdoors with a Frisbee or ball
  • Set up a space in the backyard with play equipment they love
  • Include a proper netball or basketball hoop
  • Limit their electronic games to just half an hour a day
  • Invite their friends and parents to the park so you can all socialise at the same time
  • Purchase the kinds of toys that will ensure some kind of physical activity
  • Get outside with them and have some fun. That will be good for you as well as them
  • Encourage them to play a sport if they want to
  • Girls often like dance and gymnastics, so encourage that too, it’s great exercise.

Once your children start to get fit, they’ll like to indulge in exercise even more and you won’t have to coax them so much.