I’ve often heard parents comment, when watching their toddlers or school-aged kids jet giddily around the home (or restaurant), “I wish we could bottle their energy and sell it!” I wish we could, too.
I wish we could sell activity to teens. We need to do it.
A study published in the September 5, 2002 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine chronicles an alarming decrease in physical activity in teenage girls who were followed from the age of 9 or 10 years until the age of 18 or 19. In some groups the level of physical activity dropped by more than 2/3 by age 16 – and the decline continued to accelerate from there!
We must find fun ways to keep teens moving and active if we want to keep them healthy now, and in the future. Think how much easier it was to move and get in shape when you were a teen than it is now. Active fun. Everyday.