Raising Fit Kids: Healthy Nurtition, Exercise, and Weight
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A Parent’s Guide to P.E. Class
WebMD Feature
By Laurel Leicht
Reviewed By Daniel
Brennan, MD
How many years has it been since you did a shuttle run, played dodgeball, or jogged a mile during gym class?
In that time, physical education has changed, says Cheryl Richardson, senior director of programs for the Society of Health and Physical Educators (SHAPE). “The focus is on engaging students,” she says, “so they’re learning confidence and competence in various movement skills.”
The shift isn’t just to get kids to burn some energy. It’s about preparing them for success, both in their health and their academic performance.
P.E. Lets Kids Try New Things
Gone are the days of playing basketball or badminton for 3 solid weeks, when you could hang out on the sidelines if you didn’t dig the sport. Today, gym class is about variety. Kids might spend some classes trying yoga, Pilates, or rock climbing.
Sound too out of the box? That’s kind of the idea, says Gregory D. Myer, PhD, director of research at the Division of Sports Medicine at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.
“A lot of kids specialize in a certain sport early, but P.E. gives them a broad exposure to many sports they wouldn’t necessarily try,” he says. “That can help them realize they love a new activity and teach them new movement skills that will help them throughout their life.”
P.E. Combats Childhood Obesity
Research has shown that gym class makes a difference on kids’ weight. A recent study from Cornell University found that phys ed lowered fifth graders’ body mass index (BMI) and their chances of being obese. Of course, obesity is a complex condition, and physical activity alone doesn’t solve it, Richardson says.
Still, “what P.E. provides is the opportunity to develop, practice, and reinforce healthy habits -- including understanding why it’s important to be physically active.”
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|||||||||||||||||||A Guide for Young People: What to Do With Your Life : zen habits
A Guide for Young People: What to Do With Your Life
I had a 15-year-old write to me and ask about figuring out what do do with her life.
She writes:
‘As a high-school student I’m constantly being reminded to figure out what to do with my life, what career I would like to have and so on. I definitely feel huge amounts of pressure when my teachers and parents tell me to figure out something now. I’m young and I don’t want to make a mistake and ruin my future. I know what I like and what my interests are but when I read about a job related to those interests I always feel as if I wouldn’t enjoy it and I don’t know why.’
What an extremely tough thing to figure out: what to do with your future! Now, I can’t really tell this young woman what to do, as her parents might not like that very much, but I can share what I’ve learned looking back on my life, and what I would tell my kids (oldest is 21 and still figuring things out, but I also have 17- and 16-year-old boys and a 14-year-old girl).
Here’s what I’d say.
You can’t figure out the future. Even young people who have a plan (be a doctor, lawyer, research scientist, singer) don’t really know what will happen. If they have any certainty at all, they’re a bit deluded. Life doesn’t go according to plan, and while a few people might do exactly what they set out to do, you never know if you’re one of those. Other things come along to change you, to change your opportunities, to change the world. The jobs of working at Google, Amazon or Twitter, for example, didn’t exist when I was a teen-ager. Neither did the job of Zen Habits blogger.
So if you can’t figure out the future, what do you do? Don’t focus on the future. Focus on what you can do right now that will be good no matter what the future brings. Make stuff. Build stuff. Learn skills. Go on adventures. Make friends. These things will help in any future.
Learn to be good with discomfort. One of the most important skills you can develop is being OK with some discomfort. The best things in life are often hard, and if you shy away from difficulty and discomfort, you’ll miss out. You’ll live a life of safety.
Learning is hard. Building something great is hard. Writing a book is hard. A marriage is hard. Running an ultramarathon is hard. All are amazing.
If you get good at this, you can do anything. You can start a business, which you couldn’t if you’re afraid of discomfort, because starting a business is hard and uncomfortable.
How do you get good at this? Do things now that are uncomfortable and hard, on purpose. But start with small doses. Try exercising for a little bit, even if it’s hard, but just start with a few minutes of it, and increase a minute every few days or so. Try writing a blog or meditating every day. When you find yourself avoiding discomfort, push yourself just a little bit more (within limits of reason and safety of course).
Learn to be good with uncertainty. A related skill is thriving in uncertainty. Starting a business, for example, is an amazing thing to do … but if you’re afraid of uncertainty, you’ll skip it. You can’t know how things will turn out, and so if you need to know how things will turn out, you’ll avoid great projects, businesses, opportunities.
But if you can be OK with not knowing, you’ll be open to many more possibilities. .
If you’re good at discomfort and uncertainty, you could do all kinds of things: travel the world and live cheaply while blogging about it, write a book, start a business, live in a foreign country and teach English, learn to program and create your own software, take a job with a startup, create an online magazine with other good young writers, and much more. All of those would be awesome, but you have to be OK with discomfort and uncertainty.
If any opportunities like these come along, you’ll be ready if you’ve practiced these skills.
Overcome distraction and procrastination. All of this is useless if you can’t overcome the universal problems of distraction and procrastination. You might seize an opportunity because you’re good at uncertainty and discomfort, but then not make the most of it because you’re too busy on social media and watching TV.
Actually, distraction and procrastination are just ways of avoiding discomfort, so if you get good at discomfort you’re way ahead of most people. But there are some things you can practice — .
Learn about your mind. Most people don’t realize that . They don’t notice when they run to distraction, or rationalize doing things they told themselves they wouldn’t do. It’s hard to change mental habits because you don’t always see what’s going on in your head.
Learn about how your mind works, and you’ll be much better at all of this. The best ways: meditation and blogging. With meditation () you watch your mind jumping around, running from discomfort, rationalizing. With blogging, you are forced to reflect on what you’ve been doing in life and what you’ve learned from it. It’s a great tool for self-growth, and I recommend it to every young person.
Make some money. I don’t think money is that important, but making money is difficult. You have to make someone believe in you enough to hire you or buy your products/service, which means you have to figure out why you’re worthy of someone believing in you. You have to become worthy. And you have to learn to communicate that to people so they’ll want to buy or hire you. Whether you’re selling cookies door-to-door or an app in the Apple store or trying to get a job as a cashier, you have to do this.
And you get better with practice.
I worked as a clerk at a bank and then a freelance sports writer when I was in high school, and those were valuable experiences for me.
Protip: save an emergency fund, then start investing your earnings in an index fund and watch it grow over your lifetime.
Build something small. Most people fritter their time away on things that don’t matter, like TV, video games, social media, reading news. A year of that and you have nothing to show for it. But if you did a sketch every day, or started writing web app, or created a blog or a video channel that you update regularly, or started building a cookie business … at the end of a year you’ll have something great. And some new skills. Something you can point to and say, “I built that.” Which most people can’t do.
Start small, and build it every day if possible. It’s like putting your money in investments: it grows in value over time.
Become trustworthy. When someone hires a young person, the biggest fear is that the young person is not trustworthy. That they’ll come in late and lie about it and miss deadlines. Someone who has established a reputation over the years might be much more trusted, and more likely to be hired. Learn to be trustworthy by showing up on time, doing your best on every task, being honest, admitting mistakes but fixing them, trying your best to meet deadlines, being a good person.
If you do that, you’ll build a reputation and people will recommend you to others, which is the best way to get a job or investor.
Be ready for opportunities. If you do all of the above, or at least most of it, you’ll be amazing. You’ll be way, way ahead of pretty much every other person your age. And opportunities will come your way, if you have your eyes open: job opportunities, a chance to build something with someone, an idea for a startup that you can build yourself, a new thing to learn and turn into a business, the chance to submit your new screenplay.
These opportunities might come along, and you have to be ready to seize them. Take risks — that’s one of the advantages of being young. And if none come along, create your own.
Finally: The idea behind all of this is that you can’t know what you’re going to do with your life right now, because you don’t know who you’re going to be, what you’ll be able to do, what you’ll be passionate about, who you’ll meet, what opportunities will come up, or what the world will be like. But you do know this: if you are prepared, you can do anything you want.
Prepare yourself by learning about your mind, becoming trustworthy, building things, overcoming procrastination, getting good at discomfort and uncertainty.
You can put all this off and live a life of safety and boringness. Or you can start today, and see what life has to offer you.
Lastly, what do you do when your parents and teachers pressure you to figure things out? Tell them you’re going to be an entrepreneur, start your own business, and take over the world. If you prepare for that, you’ll actually be prepared for any career.
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Of course I am not talking about the clothes I have on. Though I am glad I’m not showing this in SKYPE or face-to-face or you would agree that I am horribly dressed–but hey, I’ve not had all my cups of coffee yet, then I’ll get dressed!
I’m talking about the words I have been wearing for many months–maybe longer? I am such a person who believes that the words you use help create your own attitude–as well as attitudes of those people around you. Yet, I have slipped back into negative routines of focus: what I haven’t finished, what needs to be done, what I’m not doing, what I should be doing, lamenting how lazy I am, or whining about silly things that don’t amount to anything in the whole scheme of life.
I was thinking about the life-giving weekend this is (Easter weekend) and how so many of us have such a world of choices. I’ve missed all my blogs as much as if they are dear friends. I haven’t written on any of them in almost three years. When I started working on my Master’s Degree in Psychology in 2011, I just left all my “dear friends” behind. But, I finished my Master’s in July of 2013, and here it is 2014.
I am going to get reacquainted with my “dear friends” again–I will post things I accomplish. That might simply be organizing the plethora of shoes thrown into the bottom of my closet or finishing an article and getting it sent or taking something fun or needed to someone or helping out with a volunteer project or making a nice dinner for my hubby. By shifting my focus on what I am doing instead of what I’m not doing, it creates a shift in attitude. What a person focuses on is like falling dominos: whether it is positive or negative, it simply keeps on going.
Today: I researched how to post on my blogs (I had forgotten). I am also going to attempt the pile of shoes in my closet, but even if I only get half of them organized, at least I have gotten started!
How do you stay focused on an activity so that it’s completed with excellence and done on time?
I have a whole file of techniques I’ve created to stay focused–with a few ideas I’ve borrowed from other people’s suggestions.
A whole file of ideas, you ask?
No, I don’t have Attention Deficit Disorder or anything like that. My problem is too many involvements, too many commitments, too many projects, and too many things I like doing. With that kind of brain, no wonder it’s hard to stay focused on anything! It’s constantly fragmented.
So why do I have a whole file of ideas and not just one good one?
Maybe it’s because I’m a female and never feel just one of anything works all the time.
Maybe it’s because not all projects can use the same “stay focused” techniques.
Maybe it’s because I’m not in the mood to do any of them and you’re not going to tell me I have to!
No, but I do still need to get it done.
Here’s one of the simplest ideas I’ve ever devised and yet it’s one that I use the most. No matter how many appointments, commitments, or projects needing to be completed by the end of the day, . . .
I write on a colorful note card in large marker the one item that I need to be working on or get completed at this moment. I may have a stack of cards with various “one items” of things written on them, but the one card with one item is what I post in front of me at the moment. Somehow seeing that one item keeps me on track and my brain focused.
(When you feel distracted, how do you stay focused? You can tell us below.)
Sometimes all you want to do is bang that snooze alarm so that it never goes off again. But, you can’t.
Sometimes you want to shop and shop and shop and not worry about how much things cost. But, you don’t.
Sometimes you wish you could go out and party and pretend you’re not married, have kids, and have a job. But, you won’t.
Just as you have to follow through with certain obligations in life whether you feel like it or not, the same can be true on goals you are trying to reach. Some days you may feel like quitting and chucking your whole idea out the window, but those can simply be feelings, not what you should actually do.
The best thing to do is keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep taking one step at a time on whatever it is you want to accomplish. Instinct can be misled by feelings. Keep doing until you definitely know the answer of whether you should keep following one step at a time.
Don’t rely on your feelings. Feelings can be fickle.
(Do you ever have the feeling to just give up? What do you do? Please leave a comment and tell us.)
(check this out for fun ideas in marriage)
Never dep it may be all they have.
Well wishers and do-gooders often try to bring others down to reality, to face the truth, to quit living in a fairy-tale land.
If every inventor or high achiever listened to the naysayers, their accomplishments would never have happened.
Sometimes things don’t go as we’d hoped, but keep that hope firmly in your heart as long as you can.
(Have you had something for which you almost gave up hope, but thankful you didn’t? Please leave your comment.)
~ Glenda (gj)
(check this out for fun ideas in marriage)
No, this doesn’t mean using hindsight. It means are you always looking backward?
How can you make a difference if your thoughts are constantly taken up with things that have already happened?
If the past is all you dwell on, you’ll never get anywhere.
Ever tried walking a mile backwards? Or jogging a mile backwards?
You’ll have the same difficulty reaching goals or getting anywhere in life if your thoughts are stuck in reverse.
T you can’t change it. Look ahead to change what you can, and become part of a refreshing future.
(Do you think and plan for the future or are you always looking at the past–living your thoughts on what you once wear or on what could have been. Leave a reply we’d love to hear your thoughts.)
You have two, core choices in life. These two choices apply to everything: business, goals, activities, relationships, work, school, friends, family. . . .
You can do what God wants you to do.
You can do what Satan wants you to do.
There is no gray area. You can’t say, “Well, God knew I meant well” or “God knows I’ll do better next time” or “God knows I was trying.”
You either follow God or you’re not. Yes, everyone slips up and make mistakes. Not a single person is perfect.
You have to trust God and let him lead you in all areas of your life. Satan loves it when you are afraid, when you make excuses, when you rationalize things, when you dilute what God tells you to make life easier. God is either a part of every moment in your life or he’s not.
(I know not everyone agrees with me. What do you think?)
(check these ideas out for fun in marriage)
“Doing a thing well is often a waste of time.” – Robert Byrne
How can anyone say this? What about the adage that we all grew up with, “if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing right.” How can you say it’s a waste of time to do something right?
That’s not what the quote said. It said, “is often a waste of time.” Think about it. For everything you do in life, should it require an excellence and exactness to be called doing it right? A silly example but let’s discuss laundry. I’m very particular about laundry, and we won’t talk about how I separate and determine washer and dryer settings and which products to use, etc. I actually do that by rote. But what about the putting away of the laundry? It is true that I like all the towels folded the same way, but should I get out of sorts if someone else doesn’t fold them that way so that my towel cabinet looks horrid when you open that cabinet door? Should I take extra time to make sure all the towels are folded to the exact same degree and have no edges showing? Should I tie a coordinating ribbon around towel and sheet sets like I saw in a Martha Stewart column one day? How much time and focus in life should your towels inside a cabinet deserve?
The towel example is rather silly but the point is, some jobs need to be done. Get them over with. Call it quits. Go on to things in life that count more in the whole scheme of life: a task that will get you a promotion, more time to play with the kids, perfecting your tennis back hand, or studying for a test.
This reminds me of the movie, Sleeping with the Enemy, with Julia Roberts. In the movie, her husband was so exacting that every thing in life, including how cans were lined up in the cabinet had to be 100% perfect according to his standards. Right. Everything in life does not have to be done well.
(Should you do your best on everything or pick and choose? Please leave a comment.)
“To do nothing is tiresome because you can not stop to take a rest.”
taken from Sept. 29 devotion in the Daily Walk Bible
Haven’t you seen people who are tired all the time yet haven’t done anything but work to try to get out of work?
How many times do you say you weren’t able to do something because of situations or someone else’s actions?
Learn to listen to your own answers and explanations you give for why you didn’t do what you wanted to do.
Listen to your words to know whether circumstances really did impede you doing what you wanted–or were those simply excuses for why you didn’t do something. If you had an earthquake, flood, hurricane, fire, or tornado you probably do have legitimate reasons for why you didn’t get something done.
Be careful of the “blame game” though. It’s always someone else’s fault–not yours.
The blame game is one of the best ways to not accomplish what you want to do.
I wish I could say I was pointing fingers at everyone else on this, but unfortunately that wouldn’t be true. I’ve been guilty of the “blame game” so many times I could not possibly count them.
However, once you hear yourself and realize you are simply making excuses and pointing blame, you’ll be far less likely to keep using everything in life as an excuse.
(Do you know anyone who has an excuse for everything not done? No names please but leave your comment below.)
(look here for great ideas for fun in marriage)
When you are passionate about something, what do you do about it? Do you wait until it’s totally convenient, or do you carve out niches of time no matter what it takes?
When thoughts of your desired activity swirl in your mind and keep your brain engaged 24/7 (and it will not harm or be destructive to anything or anyone) you must make sacrifices to engage your passion: give up something less important, carve time away from something else (like a lunch hour), lose a little sleep a few nights a week, learn to say no to activities that others can do. . . .
If you are that destined in an area, it might mean that you are the one intended to do it. Whether it’s jewelry making, music, a visual art form, reading, sewing, outdoor activities, starting a business, doing a Bible study, volunteering, if you work on those dreams, you’ll not only be a better person, you have no idea who along the way you may help.
More than likely, the world will be a little bit better place if
you listen to your intuition and follow your passion. Don’ you may not be the only person who benefits.