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One of the emerging trends of most of the past paced urban, city lives is that people are becoming less physically active. This is on the decline especially where kid`s physical activity is concerned. What makes this all the more dangerous is that there is an increasing incidence of obesity among children today. Moreover, this is accompanied by a sedentary lifestyle, where the different forms of entertainment have taken over the purely physical fun time for playing. Gone are the days when children would have a specific time each day for being physically active, outdoor games, in a group. Today, more and more children want to stay indoors, either watching television or playing video games or even talking over the phone in their free time. Physical activity for children is as important, if not more, as it is for adults. There can be different forms of kid`s physical activity. While an outdoor sport is one of the most immediate source of physical activity, the latter goes well beyond sports. Physical activity includes the time taken out separately from the daily schedule to spend time in a work out. Most children have the innate sense of activities, and they especially love group activities. The school is therefore a good place to begin and include these fun activities in the daily curriculum. It could be anything. A game of tag, hide and seek or even athletics. While dancing and playing are some of the usual forms of kid`s physical activity, the latter must also include some exercising sessions into their daily lives. This is beneficial even if it is for mere 20 minutes in a day. The benefits of exercising for children are many. Development of bones and muscle strengthening are very important at this stage. It has been estimated that most of the inactive children also grow into being inactive adults. Hence, it is important that children are encouraged to be more physically active. Most of the conditions of heart and lung problems, diabetes and hypertension have been known to begin at an early age today. All the more reason to exercise to reduce the risks of most of the chronic illnesses.

While kid`s physical activity and exercising does help them to lose weight, it is very important to incorporate the same for those who are overweight or obese. Exercising not only helps them to develop a healthy and well informed self-image, at least an hour of moderate physical activity is a must for most children. Usually it has been noticed that children imitate the health habits of their parents. Thus as a parent, you can be a good role model for your child, by especially retaining your healthy habits of exercising and physical activity. Besides a stress on kid`s physical activity, however, there should be equal focus also on all that he or she consumes, preventing bad habits such as smoking and sedentary lifestyle, maintaining the correct weight in proportion to height and periodic check-ups by the paediatrician. It is one of the significant ways of ensuring that your child grows into being a healthy, confident and responsible adult.

Know more about overall fitness at Exercise and Fitness.