With National Childhood Obesity Week taking place this July, it’s a good time to get your kids – and indeed the whole family – more active
It’s not often easy for parents to recognise – or perhaps admit – that their child is overweight. But keeping your children’s weight within the normal, healthy limits is important for their health when they grow up, since being an overweight adult increases your risk of many health problems, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some types of cancer.
Experts predict that half of the children in this country will be obese or overweight by 2020 – that’s an awful lot of health problems being stored up for the future. But there are things you can do to help prevent your children from ending up as obesity statistics – and the good news is they don’t involve putting kids on a strict diet.
Activity guidelines
Many health professionals believe obesity is a growing problem among children for several reasons, and often the key reason is that kids these days just aren’t active enough. You can blame TV, the internet or computer games – but the fact is, it’s up to families to make sure children are active.
But how active should they be? Official recommendations state that children under the age of five should be physically active for at least 180 minutes every day, while those aged five and over need to do 60 minutes a day. If a child is overweight, however, they may need to do more than this to get their weight back to a healthy level.
If your kids are the type who are always on the go, running around and playing with friends, then getting the right amount of exercise may not be a problem. If, however, you have to drag them away from their computer games console, it can be much more of a challenge.
Playing games
The trick is to find activities the whole family can get involved in – and have fun together doing. Also plan ahead, so that you have something active to do with your kids every day of the week. You could, for instance, take them roller skating or skateboarding, go kite flying or just play football or frisbee in the park.
The Change4Life website also has plenty of ideas on getting children to play more, including outdoor games such as tag, dodgeball and skipping – or visit www.playgroundfun.org.uk for more games ideas.
Meanwhile indoor activities could include a game of musical statues (play music while the kids dance around, and when you stop the music they have to freeze like a statue – with the last one to freeze being out) or a hopping game, where everyone has to hop on the spot whenever you say a ‘magic’ word.
Additionally, get your children more generally active on a daily basis – you could, for instance, make sure you walk them to and from school as often as possible, or when the dog needs walking, make sure the kids go too.
And who knows, you could find yourself ending up fitter, lighter and healthier yourself too
