Fitness and Your Children

Fitness and Your Children

There are four components of fitness. They are endurance, strength, flexibility, and body composition.

Endurance:-
There are two kinds of endurance:-
Cardiovascular Endurance: It means your heart and lung are able to sustain an activity such as jogging for an extended period. Other aerobic exercises like swimming and walking also improve cardiovascular endurance.
Muscular Endurance: You build strength by weight lifting, going up the stairs, and cycling.

Strength:-
It means your ability to exert a force. There is a difference between muscular endurance and muscular strength. You use your muscular strength to lift a heavy thing and you use your muscular endurance to carry a heavy object from one place to another.

Flexibility:-
Stretching improves flexibility. It also helps to reduce stress and tension. Many experts believe that stretching reduces the risk of developing an injury while taking part in sports.

Body Composition:-
To determine how fit your child is, body composition is more important than body weight. It means the body fat should not exceed a certain percentage:

Boys
Age Good Bad
7 15-20% >20%
10 15-21% >21%
13 17-23% >23%
16 19-25% >25%

Girls
Age Good Bad
7 16-22% >22%
10 17-24% >24%
13 18-25% >25%
16 18-25% >25%

Help your child to develop total fitness.