A wellness expert has shared three top tips to help you keep your kids active over the summer.
Children aged five to 18 should be doing an average of at least 60 minutes of physical activity per day, according to the National Health Service (NHS).
To help parents and carers keep their kids active over the school holidays, a fitness, wellness, and nutrition expert has shared some guidance.
Penny Weston, who runs the award-winning health spa Moddershall Oaks and leading wellness centre, MADE, has issued three top tips.
The expert shared: "Any exercise has a really positive impact on your mental health but this is never more true than exercise in the great outdoors.
"Sunshine naturally boosts the production of the feel-good hormones and the fresh air will help your children sleep better."
How do I keep my kids active over the school holidays?
Cycling
Cycling is a great option for those looking for a way to get their child moving outdoors, according to Penny Weston.
"Cycling comes with all sorts of benefits such as stress relief (and) building muscles as it strengthens the whole body and improves cardiovascular fitness," Penny advised.
"I also think it is important to teach your children about road safety from a young age, and cycling is a great way for them to learn more about this."
Walking
Meanwhile, a 'simple but effective' method of getting your kids to exercise is walking.
Penny notes that it doesn't require any kind of equipment and can easily be turned into an exciting adventure.
She added: "Bonus points if you have a dog to walk with!
"Walking is great for improving muscle endurance, increasing energy levels and improving cardiovascular fitness.
"When we are walking our breathing rate increases, in turn allowing the oxygen to move faster through our bloodstream, which is why our energy levels are improved."
Make it a social activity
RECOMMENDED READING
How old do you have to be to babysit? See the NSPCC's guidance
Socialisation is also a key part of children's development and a good way to make physical activity more fun, the fitness expert continued.
"Sports clubs are a good way of developing your child's leadership skills, teaching them new ways to exercise, and allowing them to interact with different people in a safe environment," Penny commented.
She said. "Dance classes, football teams and netball clubs are all brilliant to get your children involved in."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel