Tips To Encourage Your Child To Exercise
The experts at Summit Orthopedics have ideas to help you make your child’s exercise an enjoyable part of your family’s life.
We live in a time when computers and digital devices occupy a significant amount of our attention and our children’s attention, and making time for fitness can be a challenge. But a child’s exercise is an important part of building healthy bones and muscles. We have some tips to help parents incorporate fun-filled physical activity into family life.
- Aim for about 35 minutes of activity every day. Break this time into shorter periods. Try a 15-minute walk and 20 minutes of sports.
- Keep a daily log of time spent on family activities. With healthy bones in mind, plan exercise like brisk walking, jogging, or hiking to build strength in legs, hips, and the lower spine.
- Don’t forget to count family chores as part of your family’s exercise plan. Raking leaves, gardening, painting, or walking the dog are great ways to get exercise.
- Make fitness fun. Incorporate sports like baseball and basketball with dancing, step aerobics, stair climbing, tennis, skiing, skating, karate, or bowling. Think about toys and gifts that encourage activity.
- Lead by example and emphasize recreation over winning. Let your children see your own enjoyment in physical activity. When children associate exercise with fun, they are more likely embrace physical activity for life.
- Plan activities that involve the entire family. Consider walking, biking, or swimming. Look for exercise that everyone will enjoy and that won’t be embarrassing or too difficult.
- Reduce the amount of sedentary time your family spends watching TV or playing video games.
With awareness and a bit of planning, you can introduce more activity into your family’s life. The exercise you share together will develop healthy habits for your children. It will improve your own fitness level too.
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