HOT TOPIC: Healthy Lifestyle
Volume 3, Issue 31 - April 22, 2007"Life has changed a great deal in forty years, much of the change due to technology. I remember as a boy in Northborough, spending my days outdoors with my friends. We would run ourselves ragged around the neighborhood, playing games, building forts, exploring woods, riding bikes. My mother had to call for me when she finally needed me to come home…..and I wasn’t always within earshot. Childhood was all about outdoor activity.
Today children spend so much more time indoors, much of it sitting still in front of television sets, computers and video game systems. While there is still ample opportunity for kids to get outside and get active, the truth is today’s children are just more sedentary than they were forty years ago.
The result is that children are, in general, more out of shape today. It is both an issue of physical activity and nutrition. When I was young I could eat a good lunch and an occasional snack and burn off calories non-stop as I played throughout the day. With today’s children sitting still a great deal more of the time, the emphasis on making smart choices for meals and snacks and working in physical activity has shifted. We can no longer assume most calories will be burned up through day-long physical activity.
Rather than judging the situation, the reality is children simply need to be educated on nutrition, physical activity and fitness. This is not necessarily about measuring food intake and prescribing exact amounts of exercise. Rather, it is about creating a lifestyle where children learn to balance their food intake with the amount of physical activity they typically exert. Developing the knowledge base, skills and attitudes that constitute a healthy lifestyle can stay with children for their lifetime.
As you teach healthy living in the classroom, you should be aware of the excellent array of resources online, many presented by national and international organizations dedicated to food and health. They take advantage of many interactive Web technologies and help to build the necessary attributes for a lifestyle that can serve children well for a lifetime. As you peruse this week’s offerings, I hope you’ll have as much fun navigating these sites as your students."
