Activity – it does a body good! There are tons of reasons why it’s so important to keep kids active and to give your kids the tools to lead an active and healthy life. Little ones are set up for success early on in life with a blank slate – a healthy body and tons of energy (we don’t have to tell you twice!). Isn’t it funny that adults exhaust themselves trying to keep kids active? While spending some of that excess energy is certainly motivation, here’s a look at 9 of the most valuable rewards of an active lifestyle for kids.
- Heart Healthy. When children engage in regular physical activity (like swim lessons, for example), their heart muscle becomes stronger. This protects the heart down the road and helps it pump more blood through the body with less effort. The heart is a muscle, and in order to strengthen that muscle it needs physical activity.
- Getting a Good Start. Most adults have heard of plaque which gets built up in the arteries, and this is what often contributes to a heart attack. This buildup happens over time but the process can absolutely begin when children are young. If you keep your kids active, their LDL cholesterol (the bad kind) will naturally be lowered, which can actually reverse the onset of arterial plaque, setting your little one up to have a long and healthy life.
- Lung Power. When a little child does any sort of cardiovascular exercise, especially swimming, their lung capacity is increased and they are able to use oxygen more efficiently. This can really benefit them throughout their life and in any other sports or physical activities they may be involved in as they grow. The more frequently they’re active, the better their lungs are able to deliver oxygen to their blood and support a healthy respiratory system and an overall healthy body.
- Better Blood Sugar Regulation. The number of children who have diabetes has been consistently growing year-over-year, and this is tied to the rise in overweight youth. By moving regularly, your child will have a lower weight and have a much lower risk for type II diabetes. Furthermore, exercise itself can help your child’s insulin work more efficiently, an issue called insulin sensitivity, and keep blood sugar spikes at bay.
- Weight Control. As mentioned previously, keeping a young person’s weight in the healthy range is key to keeping them healthy overall. By burning calories and strengthening their muscles, exercise helps kids maintain an appropriate weight and stave off diseases that are associated with carrying excess weight.
- Blood Pressure Control. Mentioned above were the heart health benefits for kids who move their bodies on a daily basis. And yet, there are even more ways in which the heart is helped by exercise. When a child performs cardiovascular activity, the heart is strengthened and doesn’t have to work as hard to pump blood.
- Increase Energy. Kids often seem to have a lot of energy, but active kids experience even greater energy levels. Endorphins, known as nature’s own energy boost, are released by the body after an activity and create a feeling of pleasure that can last for minutes to hours afterward. Plus, feeling those good feelings reinforces just how fun life really is (just ask any 3-year-old in a swimming pool)!
- Outlet for Stress. No matter how smooth you make your child’s life, children still experience stress. These little sponges often absorb the stressors that their parents or peers are facing, or feel anxious about events they encounter in their own day-to-day life. It’s important for kids, early on, to learn positive coping skills in times of stress. Exercise can be exactly the type of outlet for releasing stress and maintaining physiological – and mental – peace that a child can learn young, and rely on throughout their lifetime.
- Happy Happy! Hand-in-hand with the point above is the effect that physical activity can have on a little one’s emotional health. Not only does exercise help them manage stress, but it also tends to increase children’s confidence in themselves, which can go a long way in bolstering their overall well-being. Nothing warms our hearts more than a great big smile after an accomplishment in a swim lesson. After all, you just want your little one to be happy and healthy now, and forever.
Hopefully, these health benefits for kids demonstrate how important exercise is for a child’s well-rounded, healthy development. If you’d like to keep your kids active and try out our swimming classes, contact us here.
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