We often look at our children’s apparently endless energy and think they must be moving enough, but it is worth thinking about the guidelines for children under five and if your child gets the time and space to be as physically active as possible.
Current guidelines suggest that children should be physically active for three hours every day, with activity including a mixture of active and outdoor play – if your child does more than that, even better. At least 60 minutes of that time (across the whole day – not all at once) should be what is described as ‘moderate-to-vigorous' intensity physical activity – so your child should be getting a bit out of breath.[2]
This doesn’t mean you need to get your child involved in fitness classes or organised sport – although as they begin to understand games with rules this might be something they enjoy. It means your child should have time, space and encouragement to climb, run, dance, jump and skip (really keep moving in any way they enjoy).
The advice for adults, is that we should be physically active every day – with the more activity the better.[2]
Playing with your child can be one way to increase your own physical activity, as well as showing them that keeping moving is lots of fun.
Your child’s physical skills are developing which means this could be a great time to make up some games you can play together.
It could be as simple as finding a step or kerb, setting the timer on your phone and seeing how many times you can jump on and off again before the timer goes off.
You could put your wellies and waterproofs on, find a puddle and see who can make the biggest splash.
As well as keeping you both active, and helping your fitness and wellbeing, jumping will:
Strengthen your child’s muscles, which benefits the development of the whole body.
Build your child’s bone strength, helping bones to grow harder which protects them in later life.
Help your child develop their balance.
In all, the health benefits of jumping with two feet are enough to have us all bouncing around!
If you have not been very physically active recently, or have history of knee of other injuries which could be aggravated by jumping, it is advised to check with a health professional before taking on any new activity.
Reference
[1] Nobles, J., Thomas, C., Gross, Z.B., Hamilton, M., Trinder-Widdess, Z., Speed, C., Gibson, A., Davies, R., Farr, M., Jago, R., Foster, C., & Redwood, S. (2020) ‘“Let’s talk about physical activity”: Understanding the preferences of under-served communities when messaging pyshical activity guidelines to the public’. International Journal of Environmental Research and Publich Health, 17(8), Atricle: 2782.
[2] Department of Health and Social Care (2019). UK Chief medical officers’ physical activity guidelines.