Prevent Obesity: Get Children Moving

There are many ways to encourage kids to become physically active. Learn what kind of activity kids need and how to develop positive attitudes towards physical activity.

Being obese or overweight has a serious impact on a child's development. Obesity can harm all areas of children's development, especially social/emotional and physical development. Obesity also carries with it serious long-term health problems, including greater risk of diabetes and heart disease. Our professional responsibility is to help children develop to their full potential. Because of the serious lifelong effects of obesity we must do what we can to help children avoid this increasingly common problem.

A variety of changes in American life is causing more and more people to gain too much weight. These changes have to do with our habits about food, our food portion sizes, our food choices, and how we exercise. Both adults and children have been affected by these changes.

What is a caregiver to do? Caregivers have a great opportunity to help to fight the obesity problem in this country. Through encouraging healthy physical activity we can help children develop healthy behaviors and attitudes.

Regular physical activity is one of the keys to maintaining healthy body weight. When children develop the habit of being active, they are more likely to grow into adults with fit and healthy bodies. Giving children a positive attitude towards being physically active is an important way that you can help children realize their potential as they grow.

Infants and toddlers
The needs for physical activity in early childhood change as children grow. Infants need ten minutes or more of floor time every day. During this time, play with the infants in ways that encourage them to bat, stretch, reach, roll, or crawl.

Toddlers need thirty minutes of active physical movement each day. Taking them outside is valuable, but make sure this is an active time by choosing activities that get the kids moving. Put out toys that encourage physical activity–for instance, chasing after balls can keep toddlers on the move. If you are active the children will follow your lead, so use the outside time to do simple active things together with the children. You will all benefit!

Preschoolers
From the ages of three to five, children need sixty minutes of active play daily. Since preschool children are always running around, some people feel they don't need to do anything to encourage any more activity, but this is not true. Watch the children carefully when they are outside and notice how much physical activity is happening when the children are playing outside. Often a careful observation will reveal that at any given time many of the children are not very active.

Exercise is aerobic when it is long enough and strong enough to get children breathing hard. Make sure that children are getting aerobic exercise because it builds the heart muscle. Young children will do aerobic activity in bursts. They might run around for about five minutes and then move to a less aerobic activity. Try to increase aerobic activity using toys and games.

While most preschool children are not ready for organized sports, the skills needed for organized sports can be practiced in a fun way. Throwing and catching balls, running, and changing direction can be done in a fun and non-competitive way. The goal is to make it fun. When children find physical activity fun they stay active longer.

When you take the time to observe the children in your care, you may discover that there are children who do not like to move around very much. Try to get their interest by offering new and different activities. The key is to keep trying until you find something that each child really enjoys.

When Christine watched Dylan (a four-year-old in her care), she noticed that he spent most of his outside time sitting under a tree. She began to try activities to get him up and moving. One day, she drew a hopscotch board in chalk on the driveway and invited the children to play. Dylan tried the game, but was more interested in jumping from square to square. Christine began drawing jumping games for him with the squares drawn farther apart to challenge his jumping. Now Dylan is much more active during outside time and likes to practice his jumping every day. The bonus is that the other kids have come to enjoy this, too. Christine just draws a number of squares in a route around the driveway and the kids jump from one to the next until they complete the course.

Each child is different, and it will take some trial and error to figure out what gets them moving. But this effort is worth it because the benefits–a healthy attitude towards physical activity and a healthy and strong body–can last for a lifetime.

Bad weather doesn't reduce the need for physical activity, so when you can't go outside, do what you can inside. Ellen Neches had a group of highly active three-year-olds, and she became tired of hearing herself say, No running. So she decided to find a safe way to let the children run indoors. She created a small running track going around a table. She marked out a track with rubber non-slip pads laid out on the floor. She showed the children which direction to go around the track and let only a few children use it at the same time. This running track worked well and gave the kids a way to run on days when the weather did not permit outside play.

Obstacle courses are a great way to get kids to practice different skills. Try building a course under tables and around chairs. Encourage the children to crawl like a baby, walk like an elephant, slither like a snake around the chair, etc. This activity works well indoors and is great for a rainy day.

Music is another great way to get the kids moving indoors. Put on your favorite music and dance with the kids. If you have a very active group and children become wild when you do this, you can make a spot on the floor and ask that the children dance on the spot. They still get to move without things getting out of hand.

You are a powerful role model for the children. Do the activities that you enjoy together with the children. Nancy, a family child care provider, loves to walk and lives near a playground, so she walks the children over to the playground regularly. Children are very good observers of adults, and they notice how happy and relaxed Nancy seems during this time of day. They are learning far more than the good habit of walking and taking time playing outside; they are also learning attitudes about exercise They are absorbing the powerful message that adults enjoy exercise and can feel positive about it. This feeling is as important as the behavior.