How much physical activity should children and young people aged 5 to 18 do to keep healthy? Children and young people need to do 2 types of physical activity each week: Children and young people aged 5 to 18 should: Moderate intensity activities will raise your heart rate, and make you breathe faster and feel warmer. One way to tell if you're working at a moderate intensity level is if you can still talk, but not sing. Children and young people should do a range of different activities across the week. Examples include: Examples include: GOV.UK has infographics on physical activity for children and young people
Page last reviewed: 12 November 2021 Exercising improves both mental and physical health, and yet it is incredibly easy to stay sedentary in today’s world. Conveniences such as remote work and school, food delivery services, and screen-time pastimes can dramatically reduce the time we spend on our feet, leading to far less actual movement or exertion. For that reason, getting up and moving is a critical part of staying healthy, now more than ever, no matter how old you are. Developing healthy habits in the impressionable teen years leads to greater health and satisfaction in the short term while setting up habits that can last well into adulthood. Share on PinterestBONNINSTUDIO/Stocksy United According to the CDC, children aged 6 through 17 need about an hour of moderate to high intensity exercise daily (1). Kids who exercise tend to have stronger bones and muscles, as well as healthier body fat compositions. Youth who exercise also tend to experience a lower incidence of depression (2). Exercise can take the form of sports play, aerobic exercise such as walking or roller skating, or strength training. Still, only 25% of American teens reach this recommendation (3). If this seems like a tall order, the minimum recommendation is 30 minutes of exercise, three times per week. That’s quite a difference from the recommended amount, and it’s easy to imagine that the closer you are to the hour per day recommendation, the better your results will be. It’s possible, however to take this “more is better” attitude too far. There is absolutely such a thing as too much of a good thing. While teenagers need a fair amount of exercise, getting too much exercise comes with its own issues. Some people are naturally more active than others, but too much training can lead to injury, reduced immunity, sleeplessness, and depression. Additionally, a hyper-focus on the body can lead to disordered eating and a compulsion to burn excessive calories. Signs that your child might be getting too much exercise include:
Any of these might happen occasionally, but it is a cause for concern if these behaviors become a predominant pattern. Don’t underestimate the influence of a parent. Not only can a parent’s good example influence their child to make heathy choices about exercise and diet, but so, too, can parental bad habits lead to less healthy choices. Model good behaviors by being physically active yourself, but also provide emotional support for your child and words of encouragement. Research has found that mental health and social-emotional support from parents promotes a healthy love for movement, especially in girls (4). A good exercise program for anyone includes elements of cardio, strength, and mobility work. This is also true for teens. Many people wonder if it’s safe for teens to lift weights. In general, the answer is yes, so long as they are working with a weight that is not too heavy. In general, the goal for strength training in the teen years should be to focus on form, using lower weights and higher reps, rather than trying to lift the heaviest weight possible (5). If sports are a large part of a teenager’s life, agility training may also be included as a part of an ideal program. This type of training enhances quickness and reaction time and includes exercises that train balance and power, and even offer a cognitive challenge (6). While a large portion of a teen’s exercise program should be fairly high energy, there is also abundant evidence that mind-body exercises such as yoga can reduce anxiety and improve mental health in both healthy kids and those facing mental health challenges (7).
For overweight teens looking to lose weight, a careful approach is required. Treating exercise as punishment or as a means to an end is about as useful as going on a crash diet. It will be unpleasant, unsustainable, and ineffective. Here are some key ways to help your overweight teen:
Finding something — or even better some things — that your teen loves to do will help them have a healthy relationship with exercise that they can keep for life. A good place to start is to eliminate the “shoulds” from your life. There are so many joyful ways to move our bodies, and committing to exercise takes only figuring out how you love to move, rather than thinking about how you “should” move. Here are a few questions to ask to help your teen find movement they love and are more likely to stick with:
Once they’ve found what they like, encourage them to diversify and experience new things. If you want them to find a love for movement that will last a lifetime, help them follow their joy and stay open to new experiences. It doesn’t take a lot of fuss to add exercise to your life. Just a few exercises done at home can boost your fitness level and make some initial improvements in strength, flexibility, endurance, and enjoyment. Here are six simple movements that can get you started: Forward lungesLunges will strengthen your legs, hips, and core while elevating your heart rate and challenging your balance.
PushupsPushups strengthen the arms, shoulders, and core muscles.
SquatsThe bodyweight squat strengthens the legs, hips, and core and can be easily modified to include more weight by holding dumbbells or a kettlebell.
Bird dogThe bird dog strengthens shoulders, hips, back, and abdominals.
Hip bridgeThis exercise strengthens the muscles of the hips, abdominals, and thighs.
Dead bugThe dead bug strengthens and stabilizes your abdominals, shoulders, and hips.
It’s easier than ever to not move nowadays and this can be especially true for teens. The benefits of healthy movement, however, have not changed. Finding ways to incorporate enjoyable movement in our lives can have health benefits to enhance the quality of life, as well as the mental and physical health of our teens for years to come. Last medically reviewed on April 13, 2022 Our experts continually monitor the health and wellness space, and we update our articles when new information becomes available. Apr 13, 2022 Medically Reviewed By Jennifer Mathe, MS, CSCS, NATA-BOC |