Lay groundwork for fitness early in life

By David G. Hack

“Regular exercise helps kids control their weight and build strong bones. It protects their heart, and it may benefit their mental health as well. Active children are healthier, stronger, do better in school, sleep better and generally grow up to be fit adults.” www.mayoclinic.com

These words from the Mayo Clinic are echoed by the American Medical Association and the American Council on Exercise, among others, and it’s never too early to get kids started. For example, at the St. Luke’s Center for Health and Well-Being, Cedar Rapids, there are four levels of yoga involvement for children. Wellness Consultant Ashley Crider explained that exercise for children is an important step in helping develop healthy teens and adults.

At the Wellness Center, exercise can begin with Baby Yoga, in which the parents do yoga movements and poses and the babies are in close contact with the parents but are not actually being moved. Babies are not developmentally ready for exercise, but “there is an intimacy in this contact with baby and parent,” Crider explained. “The babies are held or are very near the parent in a softly lit, meditative type of environment.” The parents exercise and the babies respond to the relaxed contact. What is learned during class can be continued at home.

In the next level, Yoga Together, toddlers and preschool children learn basic yoga movement and poses with parents. This is more like partner yoga and emphasis is placed on having fun with the children while exercising. The class length matches the attention span of the children and the exercises match their skill development.

In Kids Yoga, fun activities are emphasized for children ages 4 - 7. Class time is shortened and children share reports of their daily activities as well as making a game of learning yoga poses. For example, flash cards are used and children will pick cards from a pile and those are the movements they work on.

Teen Yoga incorporates the changes that are naturally occurring in the adolescent body with yoga poses and movements. The class helps young people become more aware of what their bodies are capable of doing as well as exercising.

Yoga is just one of many possible routes to incorporating exercise into your lifestyle. “Just getting kids moving is the key,” says Dr. Edward Laskowski, M.D., co-director of the Sports Medicine Center at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN. “Free-play activities such as playing tag, hide-and-seek, hopscotch or jumping rope can be great for burning calories and improving fitness.”

According to Dr. Laskowski, an optimal exercise plan for children and adults must:

• Be fun

• Be readily available every day

• Be part of your daily life

• Incorporate variety

• Include activities that can be done independently

• Include an aerobic exercise, like running or walking, as the major form of activity 4 or 5 days a week

Some other suggestions from the Mayo Clinic for keeping kids interested include:

• Use your creativity. Take your school-age child on a Huckleberry Finn adventure hike or a Nancy Drew mystery run rather than just a walk around the block.

• Don’t just run with your toddlers and preschoolers. Run like a gorilla. Walk like a spider. Hop like a bunny. Stretch like a cat.

• Plan your family vacation around physical activities – hiking, skiing, snorkeling, swimming, and camping. Take along a ball or Frisbee to sneak in some activity at rest stops.

• Make chores a family affair. Who can pull the most weeks out of the vegetable garden? Who can collect the most litter in the neighborhood?

“It’s really up to you,” states the American Council on Exercise. “If you want your kids to be healthy, happy teens and adults, it’s up to you to do something about it.”

Websites of interest:

www. acefitness.org The American Council on Exercise provides information about about fitness and healthy lifestyles.

www. mayoclinic.com The Mayo Clinic provides a site for complete fitness and health needs.

www. medem.com This site provides a library where fitness related articles are made available from a medical point of view.

New Baby News, Cedar Rapids Gazette, February 15, 2004

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