ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

Top 10 Healthy Kids Activities

Updated on January 29, 2015

Healthy kids activities

There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million. ~Walt Streightiff

And of course, with daily scientific inventions, technologies and other alluring things, our kids and their lifestyles are getting dramatically altered. Now, playgrounds for the games like cricket or football are being replaced by computer screens and laptops. Activities of meeting and socializing with friends are rapidly getting replaced by texting, tweeting and chatting on internet. All said and done, we are happy that our kids are keeping up with changing times, knowing everything about the latest technologies, learning well and getting smarter. But, how much of the physical activity do we notice them doing on a day to day basis?

Research has shown that childhood obesity has grown many folds in last five years amongst the kids. For an instance, according to a study done in year 2003 by Louisiana State University, over-weight children have increased risk of having many related chronic diseases, to continue for a long time. Therefore, childhood inactivity can prove really derogatory in future run of the children.

We all know that managing a healthy lifestyle and fitness routine is pretty difficult for us, adults, but it can be just as tiring and troublesome for a child too. Proper nutrition and exercises are absolute necessities for children, but with all the modern gadgets around, it becomes pretty difficult to convince and motivate kids to come out of their comfort zone and indulge in some enjoyable physical activities. The best way of course, is to educate them about the fitness and make it a habit for them, in their early years. But, still it is never too late to get started. There are loads of enjoyable and convincing tactics by which children can be convinced to stay active and fit. There is no need to spend hours of exercise or equip certain specific instruments for your child to go for a fitness regime.

Following are certain simple tips to inspire and convince children to stay active and interested in exercises and fitness:

1) Dancing: Kids love music and absolutely adore to dance. Even an infant reacts with dancing movements and smile on his face to the music he likes. Just play some good fast music, and engage your children to dance on it. The best way is to invite their friends and siblings to join in. Make it a group activity, and make it fun. Kids don't find it boring or monotonous. They can enjoy completely and your purpose is solved.

2) Try to go for family outings: Instead of lazing around at home on a holiday, try to go for activities like hiking or backpacking on vacations as a family outing. It can be fun to explore new areas, get a change from daily routine, and help you and your family stay active and fit.

3) Jumping rope: I remember, when I was a kid, our group used to hold competition over jumping ropes, like how many times one can jump a rope non-stop, forward, backward, two at a time!. This can be real fun, as I can tell from my personal experience, and an absolute way to make kids fit while enjoying the activity.

4) Bicycling: Bicycling at 5 mph can burn about 174 calories an hour. Encourage your child to the benefits of bicycling. Make it fun by encouraging his/her friends to accompany too. You can organize simple homely bicycle races to get kids moving actively with motivation.

5) Playing recreational sports like tennis or badminton: Make it a habit to spend some time daily in playing recreational sport of your kid's choice. Check, what interests your child the most. Is it tennis, or badminton, or basketball, baseball, volleyball? Encourage your child to join such groups and sport clubs where he can play, enhance his skills, get motivation from others and stay fit at the same time.

6) Swimming: Children love water, and if you have an access to a swimming pool near your house, grab the opportunity to let your child enjoy the wonders of swimming. Swimming is the best and most enjoyable exercise and can burn about 288 calories an hour.

7) Household Chores: Try to indulge the children in household work that require physical activities like mowing lawns, washing cars etc.

8) Active Transportation: Encourage your child to use more active transportation modes like staircase, instead of lifts. You can make this fun by keeping a stopwatch and motivate your child to keep a record of his own timings in which he can climb staircase, but keep a watch so that no accidents could occur. You can also get him roller skates to enjoy and stay active while commuting.


Swimming Tools for Kids

9) Use Video Games to Child's benefits: If your child loves to play action packed video games, or games related to martial arts, then you can use this to your advantage by letting your child know and get enrolled in professional martial arts training institute (if you have an access to it).

10) Get a Pet: This is the most efficient and sure-shot way to make your child moving. Kids love to play with pets. Get them the animal they love and give them the responsibility to take care of it, make it go for a walk. This way, you can ensure that your child gets at least minimum of his/her physical activity in rather sedentary routine.

As adults, we all know and realize the importance of a regular physical activity to stay healthy and fit. But, usually we don’t give much attention in letting our kids know that it’s just as important for them too. There are numerous ways to be more active with your kids and exercise that can reap amazing benefits. And it’s certainly a win-win situation: You will be able to spend good quality time with your child and you will be enhancing his/her fitness as well.

Image references:

Physicalfitness

ehow

Demandstudios

Inwoodanimalclinic

Help me, know you better

Did you find this hub helpful?

See results
working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)