Caregivers often wonder why fitness is so important for young children’s development. At Care Courses, we offer several courses having to do with the subject. This blog will look at a few concepts from our course, Fun and Fitness: Addressing Childhood Obesity.
The increased rate of childhood obesity in recent years has been found to have a direct correlation to the increased rate of serious medical conditions as a child and later in life. These medical conditions include diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, asthma, arthritis, and poor health overall. These conditions are preventable with the proper diet and physical exercise that comes naturally with being an active child.
It is your responsibility as caregivers and teachers to offer children only healthy foods. This means no soda, no fast food, and no heavily processed snacks. Getting the parents involved eating healthy will go a long way to model the proper eating habits.
Physical activities should come naturally to children of all ages. Unfortunately, it’s far too easy to have children watch a movie or television show and play on a phone or computer to keep them occupied.
It your responsibility as a child care provider to ensure that children stay active by providing many opportunities for them to move and be active, both indoors and outdoors, every day. We have blogs on both outdoor play activities (including a free course on outdoor play!) and indoor play activities.
Infants like to bat or kick dangling objects as well as reaching or crawling toward an object. Roll balls with them or even let them slap a shallow container of water while seated on your lap.
Toddlers can have a bit more structure with their physical activities, such as throwing or kicking a ball and running around. Children of this age also like to dance to music as well.
Preschoolers benefit from several hours of physical activity each day. This also starts to include games such as hopscotch and obstacle paths.
Looking for more ideas and activities to keep your kids moving? Take our 2 clock hour (0.2 CEU) course Fun and Fitness: Addressing Childhood Obesity and learn the benefits of physical activity and proper diet. Thank you for reading!
Please let us know how we can be of additional assistance! Call us: 1–800-685‑7610, Monday through Friday, 9–5 ET, or email us days, evenings and weekends: info@CareCourses.com. We’re here to help!