By: Nick Walden
Summer weather is upon us (well mostly) and school is on its last breath for the year. With a long break in store, manykids look forward to lazy days of sleeping in with no homework and little on the to-do list.
Are you making sure your kids are getting out like they are supposed to?
It can be hard task for a parent as now kids don't have school to fill up the many hours of the day. It's not like as adults we get a summer vacation. So how can you ensure your kids are getting enough regular activity and are finding energetic things to do other than watching TV late and night and playing video games all day?
One of the most popular things is to make sure you have activities or summer camps for the kids to attend. It gives them a regular scheduled activity, provides interaction with other people, and most provide some sort of exercise. Also, for the older ones they can walk or bike there and back, which is huge benefit.
Another thing many families do is taking special family trips, such as camping or visiting locations like Disneyland. While trips are great ideas, parents need to keep in mind that there should be active things to do and not just a lot of sitting around and eating fast food. While that is fine occasionally, we as parents need to set the examples for our kids that it's okay to have fun, be active and healthy.
Why is it so important to make sure our kids are being active and getting out? Well sadly there has been a very bad trend in the United States. The Center for Disease Control reports that obesity now affects 17 percent of all children and adolescents in the U.S., which is triple the rate from a generation ago.
Seriously? One in every six kids is obese. Just to clarify, being obese is based on the BMI, or body mass index, which is factored by height and weight and age. Kids are considered overweight if they are in the 85-95 percentile (on the high end) of the BMI for their age. Obesity ranks between the 95-100 percentile.
Furthermore, there are a bunch of health risks linked to being obese at an early age that include; high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, asthma, sleep apnea and joint problems. Obese children are also more likely to be obese adults.
So what do you think? Should our kids be out and about doing things? How do you keep your kids active during the summer months?