{"id":52705,"date":"2012-08-21T10:29:58","date_gmt":"2012-08-21T14:29:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/?p=52705"},"modified":"2012-10-26T13:11:26","modified_gmt":"2012-10-26T17:11:26","slug":"inactivity-childrens-health-exercise-257","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/inactivity-childrens-health-exercise-257\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Something: Inactivity Is The Biggest Threat To Our Children’s Health"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A recent survey looked at what problems adults see effecting the health of young people today<\/a>. While traditional concerns like tee pregnancy and drug use still made the list, the biggest concern for parents were weight and activity issues. 39% of respondents chose “inactivity.” Coming in second place with 38% was “childhood obesity,” which is obviously influenced by inactivity.<\/p>\n

Researchers think that recent advocacy about the importance of exercise, like First Lady Michelle Obama’<\/strong>s “Let’s Move<\/a>” campaign and the NFL’s successful “Play 60<\/a>” program, has increased parents’ attention on the importance of movement. And it’s worked quickly. Last year, exercise didn’t even make the top ten list of concerns.<\/p>\n

The director of the poll, Matthew Davis<\/strong>, reminded everyone that exercise is about more than body weight.\u00a0\u00a0“But\u00a0exercise offers many more benefits<\/a>\u00a0other than weight loss or preventing\u00a0obesity\u00a0\u201d\u201d such as better attention and learning in school and improved sense of well-being.” That idea, that kids can learn better when they get regular exercise, has incited a push-back<\/a> against schools’ attempts to limit recess in favor of more studying. Exercise advocates say that the active time will help students more than a couple extra worksheets.<\/p>\n

Inactivity is obviously something that’s on parents’ minds, which just makes me wonder what we’re actually going to do about it. How are parents going to combat the draw of screen time. We’ve seen that the “active” video game movement<\/a> didn’t particularly help families get healthy. Parents still seem to get angry with “no-score” intramural sports<\/a>, preferring their little ones either engage in serious competition or don’t bother at all. And kids certainly aren’t seeing their parents get active<\/a>, thereby learning a good example.<\/p>\n

I think that last issue is the key to actually helping address our activity problem. Recent surverys show that two-thirds of kids report seeing their parents do “almost no physical activity.” We’re worried about our children sitting around all day, and yet that’s all they see parents do. Our kids are missing active role models in their own homes.<\/p>\n

If \u00a0adults are really concerned about inactivity, I think there’s a pretty easy way to help your kids. Take them outside. Take them on hikes. Play a game of catch or softball. Get your exercise while your kids are there, involved and paying attention. Parents are concerned about their children’s inactivity. Now we just need to see if everyone’s willing to do something about it.<\/p>\n

(Photo:\u00a0Crystal Kirk<\/a>\/Shutterstock<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Parents in this country obsess over health and safety hazards. We pay close attention to recalls. We sanitize every…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20795,"featured_media":52719,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1069,69,3346,1930],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":3,"label":"Childrearing"}],"post_tag":[{"value":1069,"label":"children's activities"},{"value":69,"label":"children's health"},{"value":3346,"label":"kids and sports"},{"value":1930,"label":"moms and exercise"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/mommyish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/lazy-shutterstock_2786889.jpg",500,361,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"Lindsay Cross","author_link":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/author\/lcross\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":3,"name":"Childrearing","slug":"childrearing","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3,"taxonomy":"category","description":"Get childrearing advice and read blog articles about how to raise your kids. Get advice for moms on how to be a good parent.\r\n","parent":0,"count":5343,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":3,"category_count":5343,"category_description":"Get childrearing advice and read blog articles about how to raise your kids. Get advice for moms on how to be a good parent.\r\n","cat_name":"Childrearing","category_nicename":"childrearing","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":1069,"name":"children's activities","slug":"childrens-activities","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1124,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":12,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":69,"name":"children's health","slug":"childrens-health","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":69,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":387,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":3346,"name":"kids and sports","slug":"kids-and-sports","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3410,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":13,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":1930,"name":"moms and exercise","slug":"moms-and-exercise","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1991,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":10,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52705"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20795"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}