The Importance Of Physical Activities

The significance for this research project is that it will provide relevant and up to date data of the current levels of physical activity within Australian adults. This project will deliver an in-depth analysis of the frequency, quantity, duration, and variety of physical activity among Australians. It will also provide information about what factors are promoting a healthy lifestyle and what barriers are preventing adults from achieving the recommended weekly levels of physical activity. The research will address:

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.

Do you get enough exercise? Are you sure about that? Or how about this, are you overweight, do you even know? Today’s adolescents don’t. In fact today’s adolescents face serious risk from their lack of activity. Today’s children are obese because they have developed some very bad habits related to healthy living and as result can suffer serious physical and psychological damage.

Types and contexts of activities are variable and change with age during childhood and adolescence. Activities of children aged 6 to 9 years are largely anaerobic (as in non-sustained activities or games such as ‘‘tag’’), and they help the child learn basic and more specialized motor skills. As youth move into the pubertal transition (about age 10-14 years, earlier in girls than in boys), these skills are incorporated into a variety of individual and group activities and many organized sports. Mature structure and function are approached or attained in late adolescence (age 15-18 years), so that physical activity programs can be more structured.

Implementing these lifestyle habits will result in healthier people and lowered rates of chronic illness. One avenue to best prevent the development of chronic disease is to have health and wellness programs in the community, workplace, and schools (NCSL, 2012). If the population was properly educated on how to realistically live healthy lifestyles, then it would be easier to change and adopt healthier habits. This is especially true for adolescents in the school system. If nutrition and health classes were mandatory components of education across the nation, children would be able to learn healthy habits early on in life and more easily maintain those habits as they grow older. Results of these programs would be vastly beneficial due to a reduction in chronic disease prevalence. In addition to promoting healthy lifestyles and chronic disease prevention, discovering and implementing newly effective treatments are paramount to reduce chronic disease. With more advanced technology and medications, early detection and management of chronic diseases are improved and risks for CCM are reduced (Chatterjee et al., 2014). These improvements will not only

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

“During the past two decades, the prevalence of obesity in children has risen greatly worldwide. Obesity in childhood causes a wide range of serious complications, and increases the risk of premature illness and death later in life, raising public-health concerns.” (Ebbeling, Pawlak & Ludwig, 2002 p.471) Currently in the Australian community and schools there is an obesity epidemic in young people with many children doing less and less physical activity then advised. “In 2007-08 the National health survey, run by the Australian Government indicated that 24.9% of children aged 5-17 years old were either overweight or obese” (Healthy Active, 2009). These figures show that children are not being properly educated about healthy

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

Not only do schools offer unhealthy foods for children, but most do not offer the required amount of physical activity. Most adolescents fall short of the 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommendation of at least one hour of aerobic activity every day. Only 18% of students in high school met that recommendation in 2007. All schools need to require some sort of a physical activity class. In 2009 only 33% took daily physical education classes. (CDC 2) Needless to say, schools play a very crucial role in the problem of childhood obesity. Physical Activity in schools could be a huge key in helping fix this problem.

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare ‘good health is an important element in a child’s quality of life as it can influence participation in many aspects of the life, including school and physical education’. A poor start to a child’s life increases the outcome of a poor adult life, as 24.9% of children aged from 5-17years already overweight or obese. These statistics are based on The International Obesity Task Force (IOTF), who have developed a standard age and sex-specific Body Mass Index (BMI) cut off point. Nutrition is the key factor of a student’s health and wellbeing, already students are; eating 48% junk food per day and eating majority foods that fall under the ‘red food’ category. (Health

Obesity is a growing concern in Australian society. This is a problem that needs to be addressed in a way that makes teenagers want to stay fit and healthy. The Australian Government recommends people aged 13 -17 to get at least one hour of exercise each and everyday, and three of these days should be doing exercises to enhance a person's physical strength. People struggle to achieve this goal as they have other commitments such as school, study, lack of time, money, poor weather and much more. Ways to exercise while maintaining the other commitments is to potentially do small vigorous intervals of working out over the course of the day. However, for money, you can always go for a run or do some dancing inside as this is free and you can take your time. This intervention is the solution to the issues we are currently facing. The intervention will strengthen the muscles as well as provide general fitness in a short amount of time and it is free and can be done in many places.

America's children are not getting enough exercise, and the health risks due to obesity are becoming epidemic in nature. Even First Lady Michelle Obama is supporting an initiative to help children become more active and to provide for exercise (at least 30-60 minutes per day) in all schools. Even limited amounts of exercise can have great health benefits. When humans exercise, the brain produces chemicals that help enhance mood, limit cravings for sugars, and contribute to healthier joints, muscles, the heart, and kidneys. In turn, this translates into more productive work time, the ability to sleep better, increase memory, and reduce dependence on medications. Children are so vulnerable to this health risk that if it continues, over 60% of graduating seniors will be clinically obese. Written by a medical journalist, the book is designed for the lay reader but has a number of documented scholarly sources.

Obesity levels of the adolescents are significantly increasing throughout Australia. Australia is known to be the …… most obese country. There is an estimated ……. males and ……. females obese in Australia, in 2012. In this year it is estimated that only 55.7% of Australians were trying to lose weight but only 30% were obese. It is said that “only one in three obese people are concerned about their weight”. The obesity rate has doubled over the years for young adolescents as now one quarter of children are predicted to be overweight. 80% of the adolescents that are currently obese are said to remain that way in their adulthood. Obesity is a concerning issue as it can cause coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, type 2 diabetes, abnormal blood fats, metabolic syndrome, cancer, osteoarthritis and sleep apnea.Obesity is caused due to many factors such as time, budget, peers, advertising, age, accessibility, motivation,

The purpose of this group task was to implement a health-promoting strategy in adolescents to improve or maintain their well-being, this health-promoting strategy had to be based off a contemporary health issue adolescents faced in their daily lives. The issue my group decided to investigate was fitness in adolescents and we did this because in a previous health assignment we found out that obesity is a major problem for Australians in this day and age, statistics show that a quarter of all Australians are obese or overweight. These statistics prompted us to target the issue of fitness because we realised that being physically inactive and unfit at a young age usually leads to being obese when you are older. The age group we targeted was 13-15-year-olds

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.