Making strides for our children

I often get asked why I moved from the adult fitness industry to PE teaching. The answer is simple. I love coaching children and helping to develop their motor skills and fitness. So it breaks my heart to see and hear that some children can’t run, jump, balance or catch a ball and that childhood obesity is on the rise.

If a child has poor fitness and motor skills, it will be very difficult for them to grow into lean and healthy adults.

Not only that, but an active child can indicate to his or her parents and teachers their cardiovascular health; assess adequacy of any medication they are on, for example, for asthma or diabetes; provide any indications of future illness or poor motor function; how the child behaves in different social and competitive situations; and can greatly enhance the child’s intellectual capacity. 

Motor skills are important for every child to develop early in life, and refine into young adulthood. 

Consider for a moment that good balance, speed and reaction time could come in handy in a number of emergency situations. Additionally, having a high repertoire of motor skills allows the child to grow into a more fully functioning adult who can work on a building site, be active with their own children and still have time to go water skiing on the weekends! 

Life is just too short to sit on the sofa all day. 

Childhood obesity is on the rise because children are not as active as they once were and for lots of reasons, wholesome home cooking has been replaced by a diet of fast food.

A decade or two ago, a chubby child was considered cute and cuddly, but now we know that if a child is fat it can be detrimental to their health.

There is not much research around regarding childhood exercise – especially for very young children.  There are three reasons for this. 

Firstly, it has and always will be, rather unethical to experiment on young children and stress their little bodies out for the sake of science. 

Secondly, resources for children’s motor skill and fitness testing was extremely scarce because it was all designed by adults, for adults. 

And thirdly, up until recently, children never needed to be tested or given an exercise programme because they were naturally very active! Oh how times have changed! 

However, if you are a caregiver, teacher, or parent you can do something to help your little one’s motor skills and fitness, while keeping in mind a few things to prevent physiological damage and limit stress.

Children’s cardiopulmonary responses (how efficiently their heart and lungs work) are weaker than an adult’s, even if the child seems to run around a lot.

In physical activities that require intense and frequent bursts of energy like sprinting or jumping, children have a more difficult time getting oxygen to the working muscles. They may need longer rest periods or shorter exercises to perform.

However, in physical activities that require more gentle and sustained energy output like long distance running, children fared as good as adolescents and young adults.  Also, sustained activity stimulates growth hormone in children and can improve sleep quality.

The other good news is that it burns heaps of energy which will prevent them storing excess fat.

A child’s thermoregulation is not as efficient as an adult’s. In other words children do not tolerate extreme temperatures, especially heat.

Despite having the same amount of sweat glands per square inch of skin and the fact that heat dissipates the same way, heat does dissipate effectively. In other words, heat from a child’s core does not move readily to their skin in order for them to cool down.

When children exercise in the heat, they will puff, pant, sweat and turn red which is typical of anybody at any age. However a child’s body will still retain some heat.

 It is important for children exercising in hotter environments to have more regular breaks, drink cold fluids and always wear a hat to shield their face and neck. 

Another possible solution to this problem is to exercise in the shade or in water.

In Bahrain it makes sense for children under the age of 16 to completely avoid being outdoors in the middle of the day in summer.

Children do not have the same muscoskeletal function as that of an adult. Children’s bones grow very quickly between the age of 12 and 16 and not nearly as fast as their muscles or tendons.  

This pull on muscles and tendons by the bones is what causes “growing pains”. They are very real and very painful for some children! 

Young teenagers can benefit from regular stretching and lengthening exercises of the arms, legs and back.

One idea is dance or gymnastics. Even younger children have relatively poor balance but are extremely flexible. Therefore, they are physically more unstable and are also unable to perform a variety of strength tasks.

Exercise should be natural and biomechanical in nature using simple and safe play resources that do not over-stimulate the brain.

Some suggestions are run and chase activities, kicking a ball, throwing a ball, dancing, riding a bicycle, bouncing on a trampoline or climbing on child-friendly playground equipment. 

Children need to exercise everyday to develop their physical abilities and overall health, but just telling a child to “go and run around outside” isn’t going to do it!  

Growing up strong, lean and healthy is not a privilege, it’s a right … and don’t forget to have fun!