National Exercise with Your Child Week

The first week of August commemorates National Exercise with Your Child Week. Founded in 2010 to promote family physical fitness, it encourages parents and caregivers to pursue active lifestyles with their children.

There are immediate and long-term benefits of physical activity for children and adults. These benefits include physical health (e.g., healthy weight, reduced risk of chronic disease) and brain health (e.g., reduced risk of depression and dementia, improved attention and memory).

According to the U.S. Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth, only 1 in 5 children aged 6-17 years engage in 2 hours or less of screen time per day, and only 1 in 4 participate in 60 minutes of physical activity per day.  Parents and caregivers have key roles to play in modeling and encouraging physical activity and  monitoring and discouraging sedentary activity.

Registered exercise professionals can help their clients be active role models for their children and bring fun ideas home to their families for ways to get active together. Specifically, registered exercise professionals can support their clients in:

1. Starting and sticking with an exercise program. Children who see their parents and caregivers being active are more likely to be active themselves.
2. Making physical activity an appealing alternative to sedentary activity. Parents and caregivers who put down their screens to be physically active encourage their children to put down their screens to be physically active.  
3. Building physical activity into the family routine. Parents and caregivers are looking for a variety of creative and fun physical activity ideas, as well as recommendations on equipment to support those activities.    

Check out our registry to find registered exercise professionals in your community. 

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