Dear Mayo Clinic: When my daughter was younger, she spent hours enjoying exterior and working round. That occurs so much much less now that she is a teen. I’m frightened that she just isn’t getting sufficient train. How a lot does she want every week, and do you may have tips to encourage her to get shifting?

Answer: As our kids develop, many dad and mom discover it a problem to get their teenagers shifting. Their lives are busy, and what leisure time they’ve usually is spent in entrance of a display screen.

But identical to adults, teenagers profit in some ways from common train. It builds endurance, bone and muscle energy and cardio health. Exercise helps preserve a wholesome weight and enhance sleep. These components are crucial as teenagers develop and develop throughout their youth.

Exercise helps teenagers’ psychological well being, as effectively. It releases stress-busting endorphins and lowers the physique’s manufacturing of stress hormones. It improves considering and reminiscence abilities, which assist in faculty and social conditions. Exercise additionally reduces the danger of despair, and helps teenagers really feel extra energetic and have a optimistic outlook on life.

One of the most important advantages of standard train for teenagers is that it establishes a wholesome behavior that units the inspiration for a lifetime of health. Research reveals that energetic kids and youths change into wholesome and energetic adults.

My sufferers motivated me to change into extra energetic. I used to be not a bodily energetic teenager or grownup. Watching my inactive sufferers battle as they aged satisfied me that I wanted to do higher. While I nonetheless don’t love train, I now run usually. And I really feel a lot better. It would have been a lot simpler, although, if I had began 30 years in the past.

So how a lot train does your teen daughter want? The Department of Health and Human Services recommends that kids and youths 6 and older get no less than an hour a day of train 5 to 6 days per week.

If your daughter participates in a sport, she might be getting sufficient train every day. But if it’s the offseason or she doesn’t often take part in sports activities, you could want to assist her discover some train or exercise to do every week.

As a part of the hour per day of train, the Department of Health and Human Services recommends that kids and youths incorporate a majority of these actions no less than three days per week:

• Aerobic train: This contains workout routines like working, biking, swimming, dancing, aerobics class, utilizing an elliptical coach and strolling.

• Muscle-strengthening: Examples embrace lifting weights; utilizing resistance bands; climbing stairs; dancing; biking; and doing pushups, squats and sit-ups.

• Bone-strengthening: This may embrace leaping rope and working, in addition to sports activities that contain leaping or speedy modifications in route.

Motivating teenagers could be a problem, however it’s attainable. Here are some tips in case your teen seems to be serious about sitting extra and exercising much less:

• Model wholesome train behaviors: You are an necessary position mannequin to your daughter. She is extra prone to be bodily energetic for those who make it a household precedence. Talk about how nice you are feeling after train, plan energetic holidays, schedule night walks as a household, or go to the gymnasium or work out collectively at residence.

• Find the enjoyable: Exercise doesn’t must be boring. Work collectively to search out workout routines that your daughter finds enjoyable and attention-grabbing. Try a brand new sport. Play music and have a dance get together within the kitchen. Explore a nature path or bike to an area park. Try a brand new train video on-line. Focusing on enjoyable will make train one thing she appears to be like ahead to as an alternative of dreads.

• Incorporate motion into each day routines: Don’t neglect that each bit counts. Encourage your daughter to take a stroll with mates throughout lunch, use the steps as an alternative of the elevator or park the automotive behind the lot. These are methods that you would be able to mannequin wholesome habits, as effectively.

• Make it social: Exercising with others retains folks motivated and impressed, and youths aren’t any exception. Encourage her to hitch a workforce with mates or schedule a daily pickup basketball sport with the neighbors.

• Cheer them on: Notice and praise your daughter when she workout routines. Everyone likes to listen to they’re doing a very good job, even teenagers who roll their eyes. Applaud her for her efforts and remind her that sluggish and regular progress is an effective option to maintain wholesome habits.

• Tie train to different pursuits: Not each teen needs to hitch a sports activities workforce, however motion will be integrated into different actions. If your daughter enjoys images, discover mountaineering trails or parks for alternatives. Teens who like to learn could also be serious about biking to a number of bookstores, or animal-loving teenagers may volunteer as a canine walker at an area humane affiliation.

Remember to examine along with your daughter’s major care supplier about any considerations you may have earlier than she begins a brand new train program, particularly if she has a power well being situation, like epilepsy, diabetes or bronchial asthma.

— Dr. Kimberly Beecher , Family Medicine, Mayo Clinic Health System, St. Peter, Minn.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *