Physical Activity

It is recommended that children 6-17 years old get 60 minutes of physical activity each day. While in school physical education can account for some of this time throughout the years, it cannot account for all of it. This is where both health and physical educators can step in to help expose studnets to the need to get out and exercise.

What can we do?

Expose students to a wide rage of activities

Not all students want to play classic physical education games and sports outside of school. Some considerations to this may be social anxiety and financial status of a family. With that in mind, teaching a variety of team games, individual activities, and lifetime activities will help to engage the most students. The goal is that each student walks away with not only the ability to go out and perform an activity, but that they may find interest in something taught and pursue it in the future.

May Include:

- Pickleball

- Bowling

- Snowshoeing

- Weight Lifting

- Gym 101 ( How to use all the machines correctly)

- Pilates, yoga, meditation

Identify places in the local community to participate in physical activity

Now that students have the knowledge and base skills to perform an activity, the goal is to get those students to use it outside of the schools setting. Finding local resources and educating students on what their options are is crucial to them going out and doing it on their own. They may have gone to the same park hundreds of times but never knew that there were specific courts for an activity they learned there. The next step in this is to team up with local partners, to plan day trips or discounts for students from the school to further engage them to participate outside of school, and to just make it fun for them.

May Include:

- Parks

- Hiking Trails

- Ski Mountains

- Bowling Alleys

- Pickleball Indoor Facilities

Emphasize the importance of getting your physical activity

Physical activity has many more benifits than staying physicaly healthy. Relaying those to studnets can have a positive impact on their outlook on participating in physical activity.

These Include:

- Increased attention and memory

- Reduced risk of depression

- Improves blood pressure

- Helps maintain normal blood sugar levels

- Reduces risk of several chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes and obesity

- Strengthens bones

References and More Information

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). Benefits of physical activity. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/physical-activity-basics/benefits/index.html

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.-b). Child activity: An overview. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/physical-activity-basics/guidelines/children.html