July 14, 2010

Family exercise plan: Make it; keep it!

By Carol Zimmermann

WASHINGTON (CNS)—The old expression “you are what you eat” could be modified today to “you are what you do” as more and more research points to the health benefits of exercise.

One group that continues to do less in the exercise category is children. And they are paying the price for their lack of movement as evidenced by recent spikes in childhood obesity rates. With each new study, children’s health advocates repeat the mantra: eat right and get exercise.

The trouble is, kids don’t seem to be reading these reports.

A study published in the British Medical Journal in September 2009 said efforts to combat obesity—stressing healthy diets and exercise—haven’t been working effectively enough.

Just days after that study was released, a report from the U.S. Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council urged local governments to get involved in curbing childhood obesity. The report suggested placing zoning restrictions on fast-food restaurants near schools and playgrounds, taxes on high-calorie, low-nutrient foods and drinks, and policies requiring publicly run after-school programs to limit time spent on playing video games and watching television.

The report also urged local officials to assess their communities and determine the number and location of grocery stores, fast-food restaurants, vending machines, walking and biking paths, and sidewalks as well as the quality and accessibility of sports and other activities for youths.

But while these suggestions and programs attempt to work their way into U.S. neighborhoods, parents shouldn’t sit back and wait. Fitness and health experts alike say parents are key to getting their children off the sofa and moving.

This responsibility also has a spiritual dimension since Church teaching emphasizes that parents are the primary and principal educators of their children. And since most children learn by example—then parents have even extra motivation to be sure they are on the exercise bandwagon.

Lynn Bode, a fitness columnist for the Web site www. CatholicMom.com, encourages parents to “set a good example” in the fitness department, noting that if children never see their parents exercising or only hear them complain about it “then they are going to have a negative image of exercise.”

“Let them know that you work out to stay healthy, to be strong and to have more energy and stamina,” she wrote.

She advises parents to find ways to exercise with their children from dancing with toddlers to playing at the playground with their kids and not just sitting on the sidelines. She suggests that parents of older children take part in a fun run or walk event together, bike ride, play tennis or basketball and implement a daily family walk each day before or after dinner.

Other fitness experts recommend that families take up snowboarding, skiing, rollerblading or hiking together.

In 2002, a national panel doubled the recommended amount of exercise per day from a minimum of 30 minutes to 60 minutes per day. This recommendation is for adults and children alike as a means to lower stress levels, keep a healthy weight, build healthy bones, muscles and joints and keep them that way to ensure a better night’s sleep.

Some families have a large gap between knowing they need to exercise more and actually doing it—which might be because of schedule overloads.

In that case, it might be time for the tried-and-true family meeting where parents sit down with their kids, discuss the importance of exercise and take a good look at how they measure up. If more should be done, families might want to let their children come up with suggested family activities.

If they can’t come up with something on their own, they can always look online for advice—as long as they don’t linger at the computer screen.

Websites abound with advice on how to get moving. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for example, has a website encouraging kids’ activities—www.bam.gov—that even satisfies the modern scheduling obsession with an online calendar for keeping track of workouts.