Fitness Is Important For Kids Minds As Well As Their Bodies

The emphasis on Kids fitness has almost exclusively been placed on the fitness of their bodies and ignores what it does for their minds. In order for Kids brains to attain peak performance, physical activity is crucial.

Exercise affects mood, anxiety, attention, and ability to learn. It fights off depression and can generate enthusiasm for learning,or the task at hand. It has a positive effect on the neurotransmitters that determine thoughts and emotions. Later in life it reduces the effects of aging in the brain.

In reality, the brain responds like muscles do, withering with inactivity, growing with use. Exercise causes the brain neurons to grow and bloom, and to improve in function at the fundamental levels. Scientists have found that muscle movement produces proteins that travel by way of the bloodstream into the brain.These proteins play a major role in our thought processes. Only within the past few years that scientists have begun to describe how these factors work.

Certainly, there is much we don't understand about what goes on in the brain, but what we are learning can help make big changes in our lives.

Why care about the brain? If for no other reason, it's running the show. For another, evidence shows that our brains, when stimulated by exercise, function at it's peak and adds considerably to the learning and problem solving processes.

If we can understand just the basics of how exercise, and Kids fitness and weight management routines improve brain function, we should have increased motivation to make it a priority for both ourselves and your kids. It can more readily become something you want to do, rather than something you "should" do. Something that will have us, and our kids, performing at our best--whether it's a physical or mental task.

Only a small minority of high schools offer a physical education class. Most grade schools have cut either the frequency, or time allotted for Physical Education, or both. At the same time, an increasing number of kids are spending five or more hours a day watching TV, playing video games, and on their computers. This suggests that at a time when more fitness and exercise is needed, educators and administrators are prescribing less.

Kids fitness and weight management programs have gained much attention as a result of what's been labeled a "childhood obesity epidemic''. Recent research shows that, not only the body, but the mind functions at it's best when exercise is a part of our daily routine, for both adults, and kids alike.

Fitness is important for mind and body, for adult and child.

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