Issues Related to Nutrition and Fitness
Ø The National Association for Sport and Physical Education recommends that young children engage in 30 minuets of organized physical activity and 60 minuets of unstructured physical activity, which will be the balance between their food intake and their exercise.
Ø Fitness has become more of a mandatory activity at schools and daycares, as a way to curb and decrease the number of children who are obese and overweight.
Ø Children begin to develop some new strength when engaged in different physical activities.
Ø Fitness keeps the kids active so that when they become adults their bones won’t be brittle, weak, and or easily broken.
Ø Exercising is the first step to becoming healthy, and once healthy is being sough; eating nutritiously is next.
Three Developmental skills that children are learning between the ages of 2-4 are hopping, jumping, and throwing. There’s many of different ways that you can engage children in activities; however, I find that making “learning” into games works the best. I would first teach the skills to the children and have them imitate what I do. Once I feel that they have mastered the skill, I would then begin my game. Hopping- hop on 1 foot to the other side of the class and back. Jumping- place an object on the floor and have them jump over the object making sure not to accidentally fall on the object. Throwing- set out a few balls and have each child throw the ball with the intentions of making the ball go in the basket. Children will master these skills before they actually know what they are doing. These developmental skills are skills that children do each and every day while playing. The importance of learning and mastering these developmental skills are so that they can be physically fit. Exercise comes in different styles, poses, and activities. Learning these skills will allow them to do other things; for instance, throwing: they can play baseball, catch, football, basketball. Jumping: they can run track, play tag etc. and Hopping: is a part of skipping, hopping can also be classified as an introduction to jumping.
When children do not participate in fitness or exercise, they tend to eat and eat and the food never leaves there body, which causes overweight children and obesity. Being overweight and obese when younger is more of a medical health risk, then when an adult. Some known medical issues are: high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes. It is common for a child who is overweight to continue gaining during their adult years until they are obese. When a child goes to school and they seem to be the largest or one of the largest kids in their class, it becomes uncomfortable for them. Kids are cruel and mean, and because a kid may be slightly bigger, they will be the target of bullying and being teased; which can result in losing their self esteem and self respect.
Adults can help children be physically fit by setting the example. If the parent is telling the child to eat healthy, they parent should also be eating healthy, same with having the children exercise- make it a fun time and exercise and be silly together. One activity that can be played is: Follow the Leader- which can be used as both locomotor and or gross motor. Another activity that is fun to do and is exercising is playing with scarves. For one thing, scarves are quiet and not as messy to clean up as some of the other toys. The adult and child or 2 children paired up can blow the scarves back and fourth trying to keep it flying as long as possible.
“If children are given goals for physical activity that are reachable, it is much easier to expect them to achieve a healthy level of activity as part of their fitness regime” (Huettig et al., 2006)
Resources:
Textbook- (Robertson, 2010)
Physical activity is very important and I feel is not only good for strength and endurance but helps with focus and will help children retain more information. I find it bothersome that my child's school only has physical education twice a week and some weeks only one time.
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