Being active and exercising is good for our health and everyone knows it, or at least should already know it. Overweight and obesity, especially the proportion of children, has increased significantly in the last 40 years, as evidenced by data provided by health agencies and institutions.

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Now, when we talk about exercise for young children, many people wonder: At what age should children start playing sports? How old are they when they start each sport or is it important when young children start exercising?

Benefits of practicing sports for children’s health

As mentioned at the beginning, the incidence of overweight and obesity in children has not stopped increasing. For this reason, it seems fundamental to look for mechanisms that help to reduce this epidemic, where daily epidemics cause new disasters in the health of young children. Not surprisingly, “old” diseases such as type 2 diabetes are becoming increasingly common in 12- and 14-year-olds and clearly demonstrate problems with social models.

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For these reasons, physical exercise continues to prevent and encourage children to develop physical skills such as athletic performance and balance, strength, speed, coordination, and expression. To help the body…

At what age do young children usually develop their skills?

By looking at the motor development of children from childhood to adolescence, we can see that they have gone through a series of skills to learn to control and move. Therefore, you can find five stages in which the basic skills of the little ones will be developed and later you will be able to acquire new “skills” to carry out your daily activities.

Under 2 years: At this stage, free play and “uncontrolled” movements are dominated by young children. They like to play and everything is new to them. They have little control over distance and space and move on impulse. At this stage, psychomotor classes can be interesting for the child’s initial development.

Preschool Stage: At this stage, they already have certain athletic skills such as jumping, running, and riding a tricycle. It is still the stage in which learning is most often done through play.

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4 to 7 years: Begins to complete certain skills such as adjustment, balance (standing on one leg or when riding a bicycle), speed, etc. From these ages, we must pay special attention to the weight that children carry in their backpacks to avoid possible back problems at these early ages.

8-9 years: At this stage, you can do certain sports that promote the development of some skills, such as racing.

10-12 years: It is time to strengthen the control and learning of the body and improve certain skills such as flexibility, strength and resistance.

What are the sports that children can practice? Also, at what age is it advisable to start doing sports?

trekking

Hiking is one of the sports with the least impact on children, and we can more easily introduce it into their lives. For this, it is always convenient to start from a short distance and look for motivations to promote this activity: walks in the park, nature excursions, tours of the history of the city center, visits to towns…

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As for the recommended age, it may be a good time to start walking between 6 and 8 years old.

Gym

Gymnastics is a sport that is characterized by the “short life” of professional gymnasts, who generally finish their career at a very young age (they rarely reach 30 years of age and continue to compete). This is a “recommended” sport to start practicing early. In addition, this sport allows children to develop skills such as flexibility and physical expression through sport.

Due to age factors, it is common for mothers to start directing their children to activities such as dancing and dancing between the ages of 5 and 7 as a point before practicing gymnastics as a sports activity.

NADA

Swimming from 3 to 4 years is a sport that helps the child to develop basic motor skills such as coordination, muscle development and resistance. They usually begin to practice it using the typical cork boards, they gain control of their body, improve their skills and move more freely without outside help.

Martial arts: Judo, Karate or Taekondo

Martial arts such as judo, karate, and taekondo are sports in which children develop flexibility, strength, coordination, and agility. Therefore, starting between the ages of 8 and 10 may be a good time for children to start practicing this sport.

Athletics

One of the most common ways that children need to run is to run. Look at the school field and you will see a group of children chasing or playing from one place to another, so track and field is a sport that helps expend that energy while developing skills and abilities like speed and endurance.

tennis

Tennis is a sport with outstanding skills, especially when coordination and agility (especially eye-to-hand coordination) are practiced. You will also learn through tennis to control your ability to hit the ball and improve your learning of space and distance.

skate

Above all, movements that focus on cooperative movements and balance movements are sports that value children’s physical expression, such as dance. From the age of 5 or 6, this activity can be introduced once or twice a week as the first contact.

Appropriate equipment is needed to protect the child from blows (elbow pads, knee pads and even helmets) since the possibility of damaging this sport due to a fall must be considered.

If you don’t already know Fitenium is a free, mobile, video-based social network for athletes who train strength or bodyweight exercises. At Fitenium users can follow their performance, compete and get discounts in nutrition and sports equipment stores. Download it here.

The place in the house where children watch television or play video games seems silly, but it is not. Having the device in the room increases the risk of obesity and increases the chances of worsening school performance.

This may seem intuitively true, but it was first verified by a study conducted by researchers at the University of Iowa.

The study shows that children who have a television in the bedroom spend less time reading, sleeping or participating in other activities, and it has a ripple effect on other aspects of life. As a result, they have poor school performance and a higher risk of obesity.

Also, because there is a TV in the room, the content that children can access is outside of parental control. Most of the time, kids watch shows and play games instead of watching kids’ TV shows or being in shared spaces.

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It is easier to say no at first and not install a television in the children’s room.

Other studies have measured the amount of time children spend in front of the screen and this amount continues to grow. Now that more and more children and adolescents have access to digital devices, time is growing rapidly and with them the effect of being in front of a screen: sedentary lifestyle and lack of reading.

For many parents, limiting the time and content that children watch or play on TV or mobile phones is a real battle.

Although it is not the definitive solution, the authors recommend leaving the devices and screens out of the children’s room.

It may be a short-term battle, but it will benefit children in the long run, they say.

If you don’t already know Fitenium is a free, mobile, video-based social network for athletes who train strength or bodyweight exercises. At Fitenium users can follow their performance, compete and get discounts in nutrition and sports equipment stores. Download it here.

These are the conclusions drawn after evaluating the results obtained from the weight and height censuses carried out by the Ministry of Health in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Education (MEP).

Children who eat in the private dining room are more likely to be overweight than children who eat in the public dining room. A census carried out with the participation of more than 300,000 schoolchildren has revealed that the problem of being overweight among Spanish minors has increased rapidly in recent years.

The cases of obesity and childhood obesity have increased by 12% in recent years.

Looking back at the current results and comparing the results of the 2008 weight and height census conducted by the National Nutrition Survey, the problem of overweight children exceeds 21%. In 2008, 34% registered this final qualification.

The difference is even greater for minors who eat in private school canteens, with census results of over 34% for minors between the ages of 6 and 12 who eat in public canteens. In the case of, it has risen to 38%. for children eating in a private dining room.

This astonishing 12 percent increase in children with obesity problems in just eight years is responsible for generating alerts to educational authorities that have committed to launching new eating plans and healthy habits in public schools.

Is the increase in overweight children only due to problems with the food served in public or private centers, or is it also related to their sedentary habits?

The prevention of obesity in children is essential to rule out possible health problems in children.

Do you think that the increase in overweight children is only related to the food in the dining room?

We’ll find out in the data from the next scheduled census…

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