The Effects Of Physical Activity On Children

For years, Americans have been told that exercising and staying active is imperative to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. In general, this fact holds true for all generations and age groups, including the youth of today. Children simply need to exercise and participate in more physical activities in order to maintain a high level of health. The Center for Health and Health Care in Schools suggests that, “one of the leading causes of this epidemic (childhood obesity) is a marked decline in physical activity and athletic participation” (“Athletics in Schools”). Childhood fascinations with watching television, playing video games, and browsing the internet are just a few of the sedentary hobbies taking over children’s free time to be active. Therefore, mandating physical activities in schools across the country will effectively reduce the frequency of this major, obesity health crisis in young students. Understandably, a plethora of factors cause and influence children to become overweight and obese, but working to fix each evident problem will, in the end, contribute to finally ending the developing childhood health crisis.

Healthy People implemented an extensive list of physical activity objectives targeting youth of all ages. The objectives are all aimed at promoting the health benefits of maintaining a physically active life-style. The following objective targets a major area of concern for the medical community and the increase of inactivity among today's youth; “PA-8.2.2; Increase the proportion of children and adolescents aged 6 to 14 years who view television, videos, or play video games for no more than 2 hours a

Physical activity also has benefits for children's social and emotional development and cognitive development. These benefits include being part of a team and making friends through group sports, which have a major impact on social and emotional development. The effect of obesity on children is closely linked to many bad health habits such as diet, smoking and drug use which in turn can affect a child's academic performance (Goran et al., 1999). Physical activity, if encouraged at a young age, can reduce the likelihood of children developing these behaviours and focus on their academic performance and cognitive development. As children in this age range are in their fundamental development stage, it is important that educators and parents alike, teach children about the importance of physical activity at a young age in order to prevent health and social well-being problems in their adult years.

As mentioned previously, exercise is seen as one of the cornerstones of a healthy life. A review of 86 scientific papers concerning exercise benefits in school age children, conducted by Janssen and Leblanc, found that children aged 15-17 “should accumulate an average of at least 60 minutes per day and up to several hours of at least moderate intensity physical activity”(Janssen and Leblanc, 1). In fact, even a more modest level of activity would be sufficient in battling health risks, such as

S. Surgeon General has declared childhood obesity to be an “epidemic” with significant adverse health consequences, including vascular disease and Type 2 diabetes that significantly raise health care costs for youth.” (The Impact of Physical Education 3) “The U.S. Surgeon General attributes the rise in childhood obesity, in part to, school cutbacks in Physical Education (PE), and urges all school systems to mandate daily PE that last at least one hundred and fifty minutes per week for elementary schoolchildren.” (The Impact of Physical Education 3) Research shows exercise aids children in maintaining a healthy body weight, strong and healthy muscles, strong bones and joints, improves sleep, school attendance is improved, self-esteem is better, and they are less likely to develop anxiety and depression. Those are just a few benefits of physical activity. Schools require subjects such as Math, Science, English, and Social Studies in order for children to graduate. Therefore, physical education should be a required course. Not only will adding physical education requirements help children physically but also, studies show that exercise helps with brain stimulation, which will help with test score and understanding in the classroom. Physical education will not only help with obesity but also improve some other problems schools deal with because of obese

Physical activity is the ability to perform the different characteristics of sports and professions for the sake of a person’s health and well-being. Physical activity can include walking, running, swimming and etc. Exercise would be considered a type of physical activity. It is known to be excellent for a person mentally and physically. It keeps a person’s heart and lungs healthy and overall lets he or she have an everlasting life. So therefore children need to be educated on physical activity and why it is essential in our lives. After learning and studying about the what could possibly happen to a person if he or she is not active, I became worried and started motivating and educating my little sister on the different types of physical activities to do. It was not something that she wanted to do but it was something she

Sports, play time, and eating healthy are ways to prevent obesity and other diseases that can stem from lack of physical activity and a healthy diet. On average, adults should get about 150 hours per week of exercise, or some vigorous activity. Children should get about 60 minutes of physical activity or play time at least three days out of the week. Even though there are pros and cons of different exercises and sports Americans can still help out their bodies for the better. Playing sports and exercising are shown to improve the way people think, act, and how they perform their daily lives, especially for children and teenagers. Marianne Engle author of “Kids and Sports” confirms “Kids who do sports build muscle, improve reflexes, attention span, focus, thinking, and reduces the likelihood of obesity (Engle Marianne

It is critical for this age group to gain as much physical activity as possible. These children are in their prime time for body development. In the recent decade, physical activity in children has decreased immensely (Colley et al. 2011). A quarter of children in Canada are either obese or overweight (Colley et al. 2011). This age group of children (in general) seem to have the most promotional physical activity options.

Most believe that having exercising facilities in the community would keep people healthy, but research has proved that wrong. Kids today are not exercising and people are not taking advantage of the exercising facilities the community offers. Researchers studies were on, “A boy that lived near an exercising facility as supposed to lose weight, but instead did the opposite,” (Problems for Kid). Kids are not as active as they

In current times everyone is constantly surrounded by old and new technology and people, especially children, are constantly using it. A Topical Approach to Life-Span Development talks about how the increased screen time that children are having is linked with lower levels of activity (Santrock, 2016). Activity levels during childhood and the effects it has on physical development has been a focus recently with initiatives by people like Michael Obama and campaigns like the NFL’s Play 60. With obesity more than doubling in children and quadrupling in adolescents in the past 30 years, there has been an increased focus on how diet and physical activity can play a part in the prevention and treating of obesity in children because of the negative health effects it can have (“Childhood Obesity Facts,” 2015). In addition to the importance of exercise in physical development, exercise can also be linked to children’s cognitive skills (Santrock, 2016). It can have benefits for children’s memory, attention, and future cognitive performance.

Physical activity is essential for children; therefore sport participation has many physical benefits for youths (Willox, 1994). In the United States there is a very unhealthy trend of physically unfit children going on. According to a recent study by the Harvard School of Public Health seven out of ten kids in our nation are out of shape and the incidence of obesity has increased by more than 50 percent among America's children and teen since 1976 and continues to grow at a staggering rate (Metzel & Shookhoff, 2006). When children participate in sports activities they get some of the exercise they need to improve their quality of life and can help prevent children from becoming obese. Physical activity regulates obesity because it increases energy expenditure, suppresses appetite, increases metabolic rate, and increases lean body mass (Willox, 1994). Even though regular physical sport activity has been shown to improve physical fitness, it can also help in preventing many different health problems down the line that youths who participate in sports are more likely not to develop than youths who do not participate in sports. Women who participated in organized sport and fitness programs as

A growing number of children are demonstrating unhealthy eating habits and as a result are becoming obese due to lack of physical activity, nutrition and genetics. Children in today’s society are not motivated to exercise and participate in after school activities. If we were to go back in time 15 to 20 years ago, children were encouraged to explore the outdoors by engaging in activities such as camping, bicycling, walking, running and playing sports. Now, living in the 21st century, technology has taken a major toll on our children health; they are spending more time indoors watching television, playing video, games, surfing the internet and texting on their mobile phones.

Do you have a child or siblings? What if at age 10 they went for a regular doctor check up and got diagnosed with diabetes. But then ontop of that information, you were told that it could have been prevented with just a little exercise. Diabetes prevention is one of many ways that physical activities benefit children. My name is Kayla Langley and I would like to inform you of the numerous benefits of exercise for children, those with and without disorders.

Physical Activity is undeniably good for everyone, not only does it keep you fit and healthy but when started at a young age, it can set up good habits for life. Sometimes however, people do not take care of their physical wellbeing, resulting in obesity and other eating disorders which can be detrimental to their health.

Studies show that children today are less active and less fit than they were five years ago, probably due to a marked increase in the time they spent in front of television, on video games and consuming high calorie-high fat