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Experts Offer Tips to Keep Children Fit

Posted on: Wednesday, 7 April 2004, 06:00 CDT

By JANET McCONNAUGHEY

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- It doesn't take a personal trainer to get a preschooler to exercise. All it takes is some imagination. How would you reach for a star? How would you pick a flower? Let's see you tiptoe. Now, let's gallop.

These are tips offered by a physical education and sports group to help parents make sure their kids don't soon join the 123 million American adults who are overweight.

"We tend to think that we need specialized knowledge or fancy equipment or to enroll them in programs that cost a lot of money to get our kids to exercise," said Rae Pica, who wrote a booklet of suggestions for parents.

She and officials from the National Association for Sport and Physical Education and other sponsors promoted it recently at a daycare center.

An estimated 64 percent all adults in this country are overweight or obese. Ten percent of all children age 2-5 and 15 percent of older children are overweight, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

"We've found, through research, that if you're active when you're young, you'll be active when you're older," said Dr. Dorothy G. Richardson, vice chair of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.

Most of the exercises in the "Kids in Action" brochure don't need any equipment at all. The most complicated equipment is a plastic sheet or old tablecloth to sit on, two big plastic cups, and sand or water to pour from one cup to the other. Outside, in the summer.

Many can be done just about anywhere, any time, one mother noted after watching her son and his classmates stretch, jump, and mirror Pica's movements.

"Just today I was with Ely at the doctor's office. These are things you can do with them when they just have to occupy themselves," Katherine Johnston said.

The government, physical fitness organizations and Kellogg Co. (K) sponsored the booklet, which is available on NASPE's Web site.

The booklet recommends several hours of active play every day for small children, with at least 30 minutes of exercises - in 10- or 15-minute chunks - for toddlers and an hour for preschoolers.

Dr. Dennis M. Styne, a pediatrics professor, likes the parental involvement illustrated in the pamphlet and called its activities "absolutely safe."

But the problem of excess weight has many causes, says Styne, of the University of California at Davis. "Calories - and availability of parents - are another part," he said.

So is television. "Small children ... should never be inactive for more than 60 minutes," the booklet notes.

One translation: Turn off the TV.

"We watch 28 hours of television a week," Styne said. "The average child has wasted three years of their life by the end of high school."

However, he said, making sure small children eat a healthy diet is often a bigger problem than getting them to move.

Most toddlers love to move, he said, but they also tend not to like new food - especially vegetables. "Children are born with a taste for sweet and a taste for salt and an aversion for bitter. Many vegetables are bitter. If you don't train a child to taste vegetables regularly, it becomes more difficult later."

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On the Net:

Children's Fitness Brochure

National Association for Sport and Physical Education

American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD)

President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports

National Center for Health Statistics

Government information about childhood obesity

More science, space, and technology from RedNova

Copyright © 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

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