I think it’s fair to say in this day and age it’s very easy for children to come home from school and want to sit down in front of a console/computer and play games or scroll the socials. Where have the good days gone when kids would rush home, get changed and head straight outside to kick back with friends from ‘down the road’ and you’d wait for your mum to holla’ for tea time. (Oh those were the days)
It’s recommended that teenagers need to do 60minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise every day. It’s also said that school-aged children should not be inactive for periods of 2 hours or more. With ‘P.E’ in schools becoming less of a necessity I feel we should be more concerned about our future generations health and well-being. In this modern-day where social media dominates the lives of our children, should we be doing more to ingrain a positive body image and well-being into our children as they grow with the times?
I don’t need to sit here and reel off the benefit of exercise (not only for adults but children as well) but I’m going to:
Better quality of sleep
Improved neural function (brain)
The ability to rationalise and deal with emotions and feelings
Stronger muscles and bones
Lesser chance of type 2 diabetes
The list literally goes on…
There are three main elements of fitness for children:
Endurance (running after a friend)
Strength (hanging and crossing monkey bars)
Flexibility (Bending to tie shoes)
As well as the above it’s important to engrain the fundamental movement patterns into children’s development from as young as possible of which there are 12. (catch, kick, run, hop, skip, vertical jump, gallop, throw, ball bounce, leap, dodge, strike) all of these patterns transfer later in life to skills and solid movement patterns. If children have been exposed to these elements and fundamentals from an early age they stand a better chance of leading an injury-free life from having learnt to move correctly. As I have mentioned with consoles and social ‘likes’ dominating our future generation are we doing enough to combat inactivity in children.
With all that being said Team Breakthrough offers children a chance to partake in weekly physical activity through a developing syllabus in our Academy. We not only want to teach the next generation to move well but to encompass overall health and well-being. Above all, we hope to inspire lifelong participation in physical activity and body positivity.
The Academy – Inspire Motivate Excel
Azlee Manley – Breakthrough Academy Director