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Children & Exercise

Children And Exercise

If you have a child of 6 to 8 years old that wants to start exercising and lifting weights, you may find yourself wondering what you should do. While some think it is perfectly fine for children to exercise, there are others that think differently. The long and short of it is that yes, it is beneficial for your child to partake in exercise or a weight training regimen although there are a few things that you should keep in mind once this starts to happen. No matter how you look at it, children aren't miniature adults and therefore you can't use the same methods with growing children that you can use with adults, as children are different from adults emotionally, anatomically, and physiologically.

Exercise and Children

Few children get 60 minutes of vigorous physical activity daily

Only 15 percent of children achieve the recommended daily average of at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and only 8 percent achieve the school-time recommendation of 30 minutes, shows a new American study. Girls, compared to boys, had significantly fewer minutes of physical activity. Ref. Source 7i.

Children & Exercise Sports & Fashion Music Movies

Children of many years ago didn't have video games and TV to distract them so play time was an outdoor activity requiring lots of physical exertion.

Exercise and Children

Children who watch lots of TV may have poor bone health later in life

Consistently watching high levels of television during childhood and adolescence were linked with lower peak bone mass at age 20 years in a recent study. Hours of television watching per week were recorded by parental or self-report at 5, 8, 10, 14, 17 and 20 years of age in 1181 participants. Those who consistently watched ?14 hours/week of television had lower bone mineral content than those who watched less television, even after adjusting for height, body mass, physical activity, calcium intake, vitamin D levels, alcohol, and smoking (All at age 20). Ref. Source 5s.

Exercise and Children

A little vigorous exercise may help boost kids' cardiometabolic health

As little as 10 minutes a day of high-intensity physical activity could help some children reduce their risk of developing heart problems and metabolic diseases such as diabetes, according to an international study. Ref. Source 1s.

Children & Exercise

My goodness, only ten minutes. Every kid should be getting ten times ten minutes. I remember when I was a kid I'd be outside from when school ended until dinner. Then I'd race through dinner as fast as my parents would let me so I could go back outside and catch the last light before the sun went down. Yeah, those were vastly different times, but w are not doing our children any favors by allowing them to live such sedentary lives.