How Important is Staying Active During Childhood?

As a child is growing, they need to stay active to be healthy. As the technology age continues to progress, parents ask us just how important physical activity is for a growing child. Sometimes, they worry that their child isn’t getting enough exercise between sitting in school and playing with electronics at night. It’s a common problem that’s lead to the need for discussion. Just how vital is activity to a child’s health?

As it turns out, being physically active is vital in setting a child up for lifelong success. Children that stay active have less of a change of getting Type Two Diabetes later in life than less active children. On top of that, being physically active can help a child or adult, to stay positive, learn more, and maintain a healthy body weight to name a few reasons. Today, we’re going to go into how important staying active is for a child by looking at some of the things that it helps to prevent/helps to do.

Exercising as a Child Makes You More Likely to do so as an Adult

When you are working with your child, the things that you teach them will last for a lifetime. This is also true about teaching your child to exercise and stay active. As a child grows and develops habits, the ones they are taught at a young age and encouraged to keep need to be healthy and overall positive to their life, such as staying active.

Teaching your child the importance of staying active at a young age can help them to stave off obesity and other effects of not being active.  Staying active will assist in keeping them at a healthy body weight. If you add to lessons on how to eat healthily, then you stand a much greater chance of improving the life long health of your child.

Physical Activity Builds Strong, Healthy Bodies

Keeping your body active can help its growth and development. For that reason, kids should be encouraged to take part in various sports that challenge them to grow and do more. Running will help to build strong, healthy leg muscles. On the other hand, taking a ninja worrier class, for example, can help you to grow strong muscles all over your body. As an addition to this, keeping active will help your bones to become strong too.

Team Sports Help Social Skills

Staying active isn’t all about your physical health as a child. CHildren that are active in groups will have much better social and interpersonal skills that children that are left to be active in their back yard or outside of team sports. If you want to reap the mental growth rewards, then you should make sure your child has the opportunity to be active in a group setting. This could be sports at the rec center or games with their school. Make sure that your child is happy but encourage them to try something new if they show apprehension about joining a team.

Exercise Improves Mental Health

If you’re an active adult, then you might understand this positive without much explaining. Being active can help your mind by releasing endorphins. These are chemicals that alleviate depression and keep you in a happy mood. Those that workout often, both children and adults, will notice less symptoms of anxiety and depression. This decrease in sadness will result in an overall better mood.

Physical Activity Leads to Better Sleep

The human body isn’t meant to sit all day. For that reason, you might not feel physically tired at the end of a workday. While mental fatigue is another issue, your body will get much better sleep after being exercised and used. Children work much the same except with more intensity. If you help a child to get their energy out, you will find that they sleep better and more than if they sit around for most of the day.

Improved Academic Attendance

Children in school can gain an extra boost for physical activity. Physical fitness can help you move blood, and thus oxygen, to your brain. This blood will, in turn, help you to be more aware and learn more during the day. If you make sure that your child is physically active each day, you can help them pay more attention in class, learn more, and miss less school overall. The effects of working out are more than just mental and physical. They are lifelong and in the real world.