Childhood Fitness
Physical activity and fitness is a very important aspect of life. In most cases, people are happier, have better self – esteems, and are more successful when they are healthy. By virtue of that scenario, there is no better time to develop a healthy life style than childhood. It is easy for parents to get their children on the right track by introducing them to sports at a young age.
In today’s society, too many children spend excessive time indoors watching television and playing video games. Children are becoming couch potatoes more and more each day. Childhood is the worst time to develop unhealthy habits. This type of behavior is the basis for an unhealthy, inactive lifestyle. Young kids need to get outside in the fresh air and stay active. In this day and age, there is no excuse for obesity in children. Although certain medical disorders can cause obesity, less than 1 percent of all obesity is caused by physical problems (obesity 1). Obesity in childhood and adolescence can be related primarily to lack of exercise and laziness. The parents of these young ones should be intelligent and responsible enough to see the positive effects of physical activity and sports. Athletics often gets children active and physically fit without them even knowing it. They are too busy having fun and competing to realize they are exercising.
Individuals opposing the idea of early involvement in sports might argue that the added pressure or stress from competition will have a negative impact on children. However, if one were to pick up a health book, he/she would find that there are two types of stress. There is distress and u stress. When asked, many people may not be aware of the meaning of either word. Distress is bad stress, causing pain or suffering of the body and mind. U stress is good stress, which motivates individuals to work and try harder. It can also be a nervousness caused from positive events, such as child birth. In the heat of competition stress is certainly prevalent. However, it is a positive stress that motivates and pushes athletes to strive for excellence and victory. This same stress encourages athletes to exercise and train in hopes of improving competition performance. Life is a stressful period; however that’s no excuse to be inactive.
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... is not in the best interest of either party. This type of approach to sports only causes children to shy away from them, and the parents will find themselves constantly fighting with the children. The best thing a parent can do is lead their children in the right direction. If a child doesn’t take to sports or doesn’t seem interested, then perhaps the parent might want to try a different approach. Look for alternate forms of physical activity. One idea is for parents to try and spend more time with their children while promoting fitness and health. Parents are looking for ways to communicate with their youngsters. This is the way to do it: a walk after dinner, a half hour of playing catch, a bike ride together, kicking the soccer ball around; there are a hundred different ways. The bottom line is that if young people don't make the time to get fit today, they are going to have to spend the time at the doctor's office tomorrow.
Overall it’s best if the parents are patient and aware of what their child is feeling. One of the most important things to remember is your children are only kids, not world class athletes. Take it slow, encourage physical activity, and hope for the best.
The amount of unnecessary behavior by parents at youth sporting events is increasing rapidly and is ruining the kid's experiences and their passion for the sports. Parents in the United States are becoming more involved in their children's sports than the kids themselves. The reason that so many young American athletes are quitting at such an early age is because their parents are making the sports a joyless experience and are placing too much pressure on the kids to win and to be the best. Parents have become out of control at youth sports and it seems that the kids are showing more civility than the parents these days. Parents need to get back to teaching their kids that sports should be played for fun and not just for showing who's the best.
Participating in a sport at an early age can be essential to the overall growth process during a child’s upbringing. Whether the participation is through some sort of organized league or just getting together amongst friends and playing, the lessons learned from this can help teach these kids and provide a positive message to them as they develop. There is a certain point, however, when organized sports can hinder progress, which is when adults get too involved and forget about the underlying reason to why they are helping. While adult involvement is necessary, adult involvement can sometimes send the wrong message to children when they try to make participation become more than just about fun and learning. According to Coakley (2009), “organized sports are worth the effort put forth by adults, as long as they do what is in the best interest of their children and put that thought ahead of their own agenda” (Coakley, p. 151). This is a valid argument because once adults put themselves in front of the children and their values, it needs to be re-evaluated as to why they first got involved in the beginning. Partaking in organized sport and activity from a young age can be beneficial to the overall development of children, as long as decisions actions are made in the best interest of the children and not stemming from ulterior motives of adults.
It may be the child of the parents that’s playing the sports but the parents of the child are who pays for all of the equipment and who gives the final decision on if they’ll let you participate in that sport. Parents are a big part of a youth sports program. According to the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases otherwise known as NIH; “More than 38 million children and adolescents participate in organized sports in the United States every year.” If you think about the parents of those 38 million children and put it as two parents each, that’s 76 million parents total. But that’s also 76 million parents that have to pay the fees for the sport or sports their child chooses to play and gets to make the decision on if they are even allowed to play.
Involving your child in sports is important part of growing up. There are several benefits to children playing sports. The child will learn how to make friends outside of school, church, and family. It will help develop self-esteem and physical skills. They discover what it means to be a member of a team, and how to win and lose with self-respect. Children also need to be active every day; exercise promotes growth and improves physical and emotional health. The Office of the Surgeon General states that active children are at less risk to high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease as well as many cancers (Office of the Surgeon General, January 11, 2007).
As a parent, all you ever want your kids to do is grow up and be something great. Parents expect their kids to have dreams of becoming a lawyer or majoring in topics like business and medicine. They don’t realize that some kids have goals like playing baseball in the major leagues or becoming a great fisherman that is on television. Not all kids have the same mind-set. People of all ages, all around the world, enjoy either watching or playing sports.
Are your kids suffering from obesity and/or depression? Are they just sitting around on the couch longing to do something? Do you want them to be healthy? Well there is a solution! People lack the want to participate in physical activities in their daily life. This might be because they are too slothful to get up or are too tired. Even at school students are not wanting to participate in p.e or even sports outside of school. In order to get people back on their feet and back active again, we need to start an after school soccer program. Physical activities kids and students want to join such as soccer can keep them in shape.
...make their player become better then in my opinion parents need to have a more positive influence on their children. (Parents Fight)
...mption of food and physical activity. To make their children more active, parents should stop buying videogames and set a time limit to decrease the amount of time their children spend in front of a computer screen. Another way to increase physical activity is to encourage children to join an extra-curricular activity. Although it is easiest to prevent obesity at a young age, many people in the United States grow up obese or become obese. To help and to encourage adults who are suffering from obesity, they need to learn the life-threatening effects that accompany the “heavy” burden.
By now almost everyone has heard about child obesity in America, but just how high are the rates? The answer might surprise you. According to Nate Whitman, a writer for The Huffington Post, “rates of obesity have doubled in 2- to 5-year-olds, quadrupled in 6- to 11-year-olds, and tripled in 12- to 19-year-olds” (par. 2). This is due to more children staying inside and only doing activities such as video games. They do not interact with anyone besides whomever they are talking to online. These findings are astonishing to say the least. What can we do to combat this? Involvement in organized sports helps children develop their social skills, improve their academic progress, and stay active.
youth sports [were] the one haven for good sportsmanship," says Darrell Burnett, a clinical child psychologist and youth sports psychologist. "Not anymore. It's not just a game anymore." With technology (etc) distracting our children with violence and so on, we cannot afford to ruin what sports may do for them. With sports being just one of the few things left that can contribute to success in life, education, and health, parents need not to put any sort of unnecessary pressure on their kids at such a young age, or any age for that matter, ever.
Putting children in sports, clubs, involving them in reading, dancing, singing, or even drama, can help keep children from reaching the risk of becoming overweight and obese. Parents are responsible for their child’s health rate, so allowing them to partake in more activities benefits their child. Parents who buy their children video games are pushing their child to stay inside instead of pushing them to go outside and play. Playing outside for just one hour every day will make a difference in a child’s health. Staying inside only collects more calories in the body, rather than being outside and burning calories. I started playing soccer when I was in seventh grade which helped me stay active and healthy. Sports are a good way to keep children on track and physically healthy so that they avoid becoming overweight. Parents should be aimed to help find a hobby or a healthy lifestyle that their child enjoys. Parents who don’t aren’t helping their child participate in life lessons which keeps there child focused on unhealthy actions such a focusing more on T.V shows and video games.
In our society today one of the most difficult problems we are facing is the large numbers of obesity in our children. One of the major factors in that is this; our children have become less physically active. At an early age children start watching TV, learn how to operate a computer, and play video games. Having technological skills is now a necessity in all of our lives because everything has turned “computerized,” but the fact is that our children are relying on these types of entertainment rather than getting up and physically exercising to entertain them selves. This directly affects the large number of obese children in our country today because of the lack of physical exercise. It is not that we want our kids to look a certain way or to be better at sports than everyone else, but it is that we want our kids to be physically fit and to develop a healthy lifestyle. Physical exercise is not only for adults, it is for children as well, so we must understand the importance of our children exercising and the benefits from it. By doing that it will make an impact on that child for the rest of his/her life.
Let’s review the Pros of children taking part in organized sports: physical activity, socialization, health competition, self-esteem, and discipline. With every action there is an equal reaction also known as the Cons of children taking part in organized sports: which are injuries, cost, stress, and lost family time together.Some of the benefits of playing outdoor sports, are stated by Adnan Samia in an article entitled “Benefits of Sports.” In schools today the break time is hardly 20 to 30 minutes. Playing outdoor games enhance endurance, flexibility, improve balance as well as strengthen bones and muscles. Sports help in developing better hand-eye co-ordination and fast foot movement. The children who play sports are less likely to get arthritis and diabetes than their peers who do not exercise or play games.
In todays world though high school sports have become just as much about college recruitment as anything. Parents are trying to push their children to the next level. They are using the child's athletic ability to try and to compete for some of the nations top scholarships to the biggest college schools in the country. This added pressure makes children a lot more vulnerable to injury and other stress related illnesses. In fact out of the thirty million high schoolers that compete in high school sports a little under three and a half million athletes seek medical attention at lease once after they have shown symptoms of over...
There are two main factors going into this problem, one is that the children are not getting enough exercise, and two is that they do not a have a healthy diet. The diet can be fixed by having healthy options at school for lunch and talking to parents about providing a healthier diet. The next problem is exercise, now most schools will provide recess/PE for kids to exercise but a study has shown that recess/PE is not enough exercise on its own. Children need more time of exercise and play than the school can provide. This is where playing on an outside sports team could be of help to the children. Outside sports teams more competitive athletically and can push your child to be in better shape while providing the extra exercise the child needs. There are also research that shows that playing sports leads to a child having a healthier mind. In the article “A systematic review of the psychological and social benefits of participation in sport for children and adolescents: informing development of a conceptual model of health through sport” they talked about the results showing children who play sports have better psychological health. Physical and physiological help gets provide to kids through playing on a sports