A new study conducted on childhood obesity found that teachers can significantly help children combat this weight disorder.
Be Active Kids, developed at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG), is looking to aid states across the United States become more aware of and fight obesity. For this, researchers looked into influencing factors of childhood obesity and found that when teachers direct children to indulge in more physical activities, kids are more active and less sedentary.
"In the past twenty years, childhood obesity rates have skyrocketed," said FPG investigator Allison De Marco, in a press statement. "And for the first time in over a century, children's life expectancies are declining because of increased numbers of overweight kids."
Childhood obesity has been associated with many health issues both in early days and later in life. This weight problem, along with less physical activity, can lead to coronary heart disease, hypertension, Type II diabetes, and other chronic diseases.
Previous studies have shown how physical activities can reduce the chances of developing obesity and chronic diseases, while positively influencing other areas of development. Childhood physical activity is related to better health, higher test scores, and fewer behavioral problems.
"But preschoolers engage in mostly sedentary activities. Surprisingly, children don't just run outside and play, and even at recess, preschoolers actually are fairly inactive," the study authors said. "Clearly, it's important to get children up and keep them moving. Child care programs can be excellent avenues for increasing children's physical activity. We designed our guide especially for children birth to age 5 in these settings."
The new guide created by De Marco and team contains dozens of age-appropriate activities that teachers can incorporate into their teachings.
"When teachers directed the activities, activity levels increased. It was fun to see how creative they could be when working from our instructions, adapting and enhancing the activities for their own kids," she said. "Teachers are more comfortable providing activities they know are safe and developmentally appropriate."
