Activate Your Life

www.tvturnoff.org

…Try participating with them!

Around your neighborhood, proceed for a brisk walk in the park or on a trail, with your family. If possible, try out climbing in a park with hills and rocks. Make it as a funny entertainment; the kids won’t know that they are exercising!

Take your kids to the nearby playground. Let them do plenty of exercise running here and there around the playground and you too can join them for your health benefits!

Hopscotch is a better game to make your child exercise.

Go for bike ride along with your family.

Roller-skating and ice-skating are also good choice for exercising. Both are great exercises till mom and dad avoid falling on their bums!

Swimming would serve as great exercise and it is fun for everyone. When the weather is too cold, find an indoor swimming pool to hang around.

Mom and dad can jump out too! Yes, jump on trampolines. To get a fast workout, trampolines is an excellent choice. Remember that you may find yourself sore the next morning!

Teach your child to use skipping rope. Feed them some of those little rhymes that you used to recite when you jumped when you were a kid.

Go for bowling, bowling is a great and cool physical exercise and the entire family can participate.

Make your child take the pet for a walk or let them play with the dog with a ball (if you have a dog).

Try some winter drills. There are many useful drills to do during that cold time.

Do gardening along with your kids. Many kids like gardening. This serves as a low-impact drill.

Hide-and-seek will be a great exercise for everyone. This can be played outside or sometimes indoors during rainy days.

Let everyone dance for your guitar or switch on the jukebox and let them dance for that! The kids will love to dance and everyone get laughs out of funny movements!

Use toy guns! Let everyone run around and try to shoot everyone. Kids plus squirt guns equals fun and exercise.

Try throwing a ball or disc. Let your child catch and throw for you. 

Article from: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1099448/how_to_make_your_child_exercise.html  By Kenneth Barry

According to KidsHealth.org, “the percentage of overweight kids has more than doubled over the past 30 years. Although many factors contribute to this epidemic, kids are becoming more sedentary. In other words, they’re sitting around a lot more than they used to.”

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the average child is watching about 3 hours of television a day. And the average kid spends 5½ hours on all media combined, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Young kids should not be inactive for prolonged periods of time — no more than 1 hour unless they’re sleeping. And school-age children should not be inactive for periods longer than 2 hours.

One of the best ways to get kids to be more active is to limit the amount of time spent in sedentary activities, especially watching TV or playing video games. The AAP recommends that children under the age of 2 years watch no TV at all and that screen time should be limited to no more than 1 to 2 hours of quality programming a day for kids 2 years and older

So what can a parent do to help??

Parents can engage in aerobic activities with their children, which is both fun and healthy.

Examples of aerobic activities include:

• basketball
• bicycling
• ice-skating
• in-line skating
• soccer
• swimming
• tennis
• walking
• jogging
• running

Combining regular physical activity with a healthy diet is the key to a healthy lifestyle.

Here are some tips for raising fit kids:

• Help your child participate in a variety of activities that are age-appropriate.
• Establish a regular schedule for physical activity.
• Incorporate activity into daily routines, such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator.
• Embrace a healthier lifestyle yourself, so you’ll be a positive role model for your family.
• Keep it fun, so you can count on your child to come back for more.

The 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that children and teens should get at least 60 minutes of physical activity on most—and preferably all—days of the week.

Activities can include:

• Walking,
• Biking,
• Swimming,
• Playing outdoors,
• Running,
• Soccer,
• Basketball, and
• Doing active chores like vacuuming sweeping and raking.

Active, healthy lifestyles can also help:

• Improve children’s self-confidence
• Promote a healthy weight
• Build strong bones and strengthen muscles
• Promote good posture and balance
• Maintain flexibility
• Establish good sleep patterns