What do you think of when you hear the word exercise? Most patients envision running on a treadmill or lifting weights, which in all honesty, does not sound fun. Exercise when described in that context may be overwhelming to an obese child who already struggles with self esteem issues and lags behind their peers. I recently saw a young boy in clinic who was clearly excited about football, but was embarrassed when it came to conditioning because he had a difficult time doing situps. So he quit. How do we motivate youth to participate? Clearly there are some activities that can appeal to all. Some studies found that encouraging less screen time was more effective that encouraging more exercise. The trick is to make activity fun and parents are a big part of that. It may take some work finding physical activity that will fit into every one's schedule, but it is clearly an important part of setting up lifelong fitness habits. Encouraging at least an hour a day of physical activity is the key component of this module. Additionally, a recent Utah survey of providers found that we are better at recommending exercise to our pediatric patients, when we are actually exercising ourselves.
For the Provider:
this link has a toolkit where you can order free educational materials in different languages
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