Empowering Healthy Kids Blog

Check your local YMCA for scheduled events and activities:

Put play in your day and enjoy some fun and relaxing active family time by visiting your local Y on April 18 for YMCA Healthy Kids® Day.  The nation’s largest health day for children and families, YMCA Healthy Kids Day offers fun, engaging and creative activities for children and families and promotes year-long wellness and healthier living.  YMCA Healthy Kids Day events are free and open to all.

A new programme by “got milk?” Body By Milk(R) Campaign and NBA FIT, the NBA’s comprehensive health and wellness initiative that promotes healthy lifestyles for children, teens and adults through fitness and nutrition:

Teens can join the Get Fit By Finals Challenge at bodybymilk.com. Whether they’re star athletes or just wanting to improve their fitness level, the program has something for teens of all ability levels and interests to help them achieve their personal goals. To help motivate teens to get involved, Challenge participants will be eligible to win a variety of prizes, including sports equipment and a VIP experience at the 2009 NBA Finals. Participating schools also have a chance to win a gym makeover by showing how they rally their students to get fit.

Exclusive Get Fit Tips and Tools

• Exclusive NBA Training Videos: Teens can watch exclusive videos each week at bodybymilk.com to get the inside scoop on how the pros stay fit and healthy. Featuring some of the best players from the NBA and WNBA, as well as NBA trainers and sports dietitians, each video covers different fitness or nutrition topics to help guide teens on the road to fitness, NBA-style.
• Get Fit “Daily Drills”: Teens can receive daily video tips from NBA pros suggesting simple behavior modifications they can make each day to help them Get Fit. Teens can get their Daily Drills online or they can opt to receive them via e-mail - whatever suits them best!
• Online Personal Fitness Tracker: To help them stay on track with their fitness routine, teens will receive a free Personal Fitness Tracker when they sign up for the Get Fit By Finals Challenge. This exclusive online tool helps them log their minutes of daily exercise and milk consumption, journal their progress towards reaching their personal goal, and assign a “Get Fit Champion” to follow along and provide motivation. Some studies suggest journaling can be an effective way of reaching personal fitness and health goals.
• Get Fit “To Go”: Teens won’t have to go far to get expert fitness tips and exclusive NBA content. The Get Fit “widget” is a one-stop shop for program information, serving up weekly videos, Daily Drills and a link to their Personal Fitness Tracker - all from the convenience of their own social network page or desktop. Teens can grab the widget at bodybymilk.com - then they’re good to go!

Get Fit Rewards

Getting fit can be a rewarding experience - especially with the support of Milk and the NBA. When teens join the Get Fit By Finals Challenge, they’ll receive a special Get Fit rewards package featuring discounts on fitness gear. Frequent “mini-challenges” will encourage teens to show how they’re getting fit for the chance to bag some sweet rewards, and teens who show how they’re getting fit using their Personal Fitness Tracker will be eligible to win trips to the NBA Playoffs and a grand prize of an all-expenses-paid VIP experience at the 2009 NBA Finals. Plus, there are cool sweepstakes prizes for all teens, whether or not they join the Challenge.

Get the Body You Want

Being active and eating right is key to getting fit and maintaining a healthy weight - and it’s important to think about what you drink. Regular exercise and a healthy diet that includes drinking lowfat or fat free milk is not only a healthier choice; it can also help teens look and feel their best.

In fact, studies suggest that teens who drink milk instead of sugary drinks tend to be leaner than teens who don’t.

Get Fit By Finals encourages teens to drink 3 glasses of lowfat or fat free milk a day to help get the nine essential nutrients active bodies need, including calcium, protein, vitamin D and potassium. It’s a simple behavior change that can add up to make a big difference. Choosing lowfat or fat free milk over nutrient void beverages is one easy way teens can cut out empty calories and in their place, get important nutrients to help them look and feel healthy.

New research yields quantitative targets for children’s exercise:

Led by Kinesiology and Health Studies professor Ian Janssen, the new study supports Canada’s Physical Activity Guidelines for Children and Youth, which call for children to accumulate at least 90 minutes of  moderate-to-vigorous physical activity over the course of the day, in bouts of at least five to 10 minutes’ duration. Until now there has been no scientific evidence to support the recommendation of sustained, rather than sporadic exercise.

I love entrepreneurs:

AN Aylesbury fitness guru has turned entrepreneur by setting up her own business which aims to get young people fit and healthy using alternative fitness programmes.Kate Wells, 24, of Watermead, set up Wikidz exercise and fitness company with the ultimate aim of getting the Vale’s children fit and keeping them that way for life.

As the Government continues to try and tackle the issue of childhood obesity, the pressure is on for schools to provide more opportunities for youngsters to participate in physical activities as well as eating a balanced, healthy diet. This, Miss Wells believes, is where her company Wikidz comes in. She set up the company with business partner and ex-army fitness expert Karl Rowley in October 2008 and feels the time is right to start changing the mindsets of parents and youngsters alike.

For the next two weeks at the William Harding School in Aylesbury, Miss Wells will be teaching her ‘Team Energy’ programme to Year 3 pupils. Team Energy is just one of three programmes which include Team Combat and Team Jam which are tailored for different age groups. The programmes use fast-paced music, dance, martial art techniques, circuits, relays, aerobics and team games to keep 5-16 year olds active and interested.

Researchers at San Diego State University have come up with a recommendation for keeping fit - 100 steps per minute for 30 minutes:

A US team reached the figure after measuring the body’s oxygen demand in some 100 people walking on a treadmill.

They wrote in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine that a pedometer alone was not enough to gauge exercise as it gave no data on intensity.

US and UK guidelines urge half an hour of moderate exercise five days a week.

But there is often confusion as to what constitutes moderate exercise, and the amount of gardening, housework or walking needed to confer health benefits.

Researchers at the San Diego State University based their conclusions on exercise tests given to 97 healthy adults who had an average age of 32.

In general, men needed to walk at a pace of 92 to 102 steps per minute to achieve a moderately intense workout for their hearts. The range for women was between 91 and 115 steps per minute.

“Because health benefits can be achieved with bouts of exercise lasting at least 10 minutes, a useful starting point is to try to accumulate 1000 steps in 10 minutes, before building up to 3000 steps in 30 minutes,” said Simon Marshall, lead researcher.

While this was a study targetted at adults, I hope that this research will spur further work examining targets for children.

Applications are now open for Fresh Food Kids Community Grants (receive up to $5,000). Apply here:

Via Science Daily:

With 17 percent of US children between ages 2 and 19 classified as obese, new research shows that parents may not be recognizing their own children’s risk factors. A new study shows that parents are likely to misperceive their child’s weight – especially those parents who are overweight themselves.

This reminds me of a NewsRadio segment I was listening to the other day. A children’s health expert (I forgot his name) and he made the argument that it’s a case of “monkey see, monkey do.” A child will pick up the unhealthy habits of parents. The best way is to help your child is to lead by example.

This looks interesting:

The IronKids National Event Series was started in 1985 and has seen more than 40,000 participants in its history. The series, with a reputation as the premier event series in the U.S., recognizes Olympian, Hunter Kemper, and seven-time Tour de France Winner, Lance Armstrong, as past champions.
Ages 6-15
The IronKids Series will target 600 - 800 participants per event between the ages of 6 and 15 years old. Children will compete in age-appropriate distances with an emphasis on fitness, fun and safety.
IronKids Legacy Program
With charitable donations raised through The Ironman Foundation, IronKids will build a fitness-oriented play system in schools and/or public parks in the host city of IronKids races across America.
An estimated one-third of American children and adolescents are obese or at risk of becoming obese. IronKids will build a fitness-oriented play system in school and/or public parks in the host cities of the IronKids races. To assist us, we will enlist Landscape Structures, the premier provider of innovative playground equipment. To ensure the activity and use of the playground, IronKids is in the process of forming a partnership with a non-profit organization that will implement wellness practices in the school systems involved in the IronKids Legacy Program. The objective of the school program is to educate students on healthy nutrition practices and increase physical activity using the IronKids Playgrounds.

(Hat Tip: EmpowHer)

We’ve seen previous studies that show the fitter the student the better academic scores they achieve. Now more research:

School children who have a daily recess break behave better and are likely to learn more, according to a large study of more than 10,000 third-graders.

Researchers studying US girls and boys, 8 to 9 years old, found that a break of 15 minutes or longer was associated with better classroom behaviour (as rated by teachers).

But many kids now have less free time and engage in fewer physical activities at school because, in response to the US ”No Child Left Behind Act” of 2001, many school districts cut time allotted to recess in order to focus on reading and math.

The trend especially affects kids who are black, come from poor families, and go to public city schools.

The researchers concluded that “recess may play an important role in the learning, social development, and health of children in elementary school.” They encourage parents to learn about physical activity and recess programs when selecting a school for their child.

For kids, exercise means playing and being physically active. Kids exercise when they have gym class at school, soccer practice, or dance class. They’re also exercising when they’re at recess, riding bikes, or playing tag.

You might not be able to ensure your kids get a daily recess break at school, but you can make sure they’re active at home. Encourage kids to do a variety of activities so that they can work on these three elements:

1. Endurance – developed when kids regularly engage in aerobic activity
2. Strength – push-ups, stomach crunches, pull-ups, climbing, and wrestling all help tone and strengthen muscles
3. Flexibility – stretching exercises help improve flexibility, allowing muscles and joints to bend and move easily through their full range of motion

How much is enough? According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), all kids 2 years and older should get at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise on most, preferably all, days of the week.

I think that the number of activity-based games will increase:

SCOTTISH health and education experts last night backed calls for interactive video games, such as the Nintendo Wii, to be used as a key weapon in the fight to tackle obesity among children.
Sir Liam Donaldson, the UK government’s chief medical officer, yesterday recommended in his annual report that children be given gaming systems as part of a strategy to address sedentary lifestyles.

He said that, although the more traditional video games such as PlayStation can be a major cause of overweight and obesity in children and young adults, interactive multimedia games such as Sony EyeToy and Nintendo Wii Sports can raise the heart rate and increase the number of calories burnt by 42 per cent – offering a way of providing the recommended daily physical activity for children in their homes.