Better Physical and Mental Health
Physical activity maintains and improves the health of every system in the body. Establishing healthy behaviors in youth leads to healthier lives as adults.
For children and adolescents, exercise leads to:
- Strong hearts
- Strong muscles
- Strong bones
and a healthy body that doesn’t get sick and can learn and play!
Exercise is crucial for maintaining a healthy body weight and preventing weight gain and obesity.
Physical activity also lowers the risk of many diseases, bone fractures, and death from all causes.
Physical activity is also good for the mind! It increases feelings of happiness and reduces symptoms of depression and anxiety.
Smarter Minds and Bigger Brains
To improve students’ learning abilities and academic performance, exercise their bodies- not just their minds!
Scientific studies have consistently shown that exercise improves memory, learning, and critical thinking capacities by increasing blood flow to the brain.
Leading researchers who study exercise and the brain agree that for school-aged children and adolescents, exercise enhances many academic skills:
· IQ
· perceptual abilities
· readiness to learn
· scholastic achievement
· creativity
· performance on verbal and mathematical tests.
Research studies have also proven that increasing time in physical education actually enhances academic performance, rather than worsening it.
Just like exercise builds muscle, physical activity increases the growth of cells throughout the brain, especially in areas related to learning, memory, and intelligence. So by increasing physical activity, students get bigger and smarter brains in addition to fitter, healthier bodies!
Better Behavior, Energy, and Happiness
How children behave and focus in the classroom relates directly to how much and how well they can learn. No teacher wants to spend an entire class disciplining bad behavior instead of teaching essential concepts.
Exercise is a scientifically proven way to improve students’ classroom behavior, mood, energy, and concentration.
- Through its benefits for the brain, exercise improves attention and focus, which enhances students’ concentration and ability to learn.
- Exercise increases positive emotions and energy, which makes students feel good and more ready to learn.
- Exercise provides a healthy outlet for reducing stress, so students can release tension through physical activity and behave more appropriately in the classroom instead of acting out.
- Exercise can improve self-esteem and self-efficacy, giving students greater confidence in their abilities to learn and perform well in school.
For students to learn more, they need to move more!
Reduced Risk of Diseases from Sitting
Addressing how much kids and teens exercise is not enough. We also have to address how much they sit.
Recent research has shown that prolonged sitting increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and death from all causes, independent of how much physical activity a person does.
More time sitting is also associated with worse mental health.
It’s essential for children and adolescents (as well as adults) to get up and move every 30 minutes to 1 hour. Movement breaks reduce the physical and mental health risks of prolonged sitting.
Take breaks to move during classes and keep students moving throughout the day! More physical activity and less sitting is crucial for their bodies, minds, and chances of becoming healthy adults.