Why Youth Fitness Training Is Needed Now More Than Ever!
Great fitness professionals that have a passion for youth fitness training are needed now more than ever! Childhood Obesity is on the rise and so is the negative impact that this epidemic has on the youth.
I can share with you firsthand what it is like to be overweight as a child and have to suffer though the negative comments and teasing. Luckily I was an athlete so I was able to hide behind my talents on the field and court, but there are many kids that aren’t afforded that luxury.
The impact that youth fitness training can have in our society today is huge. Not only is this one of the fastest growing industries but it is also one of the most needed!
Here are just a few reasons why we need more youth fitness training programs today:
– The path to obesity starts prior to children transitioning to a diet of solid foods
– 34% of 2-year-olds are obese or overweight. That’s a scary Childhood Obesity statistic.
– The CDC reports that childhood obesity has tripled over the past 3 decades
Those are upsetting statistics to say the least.
However, it doesn’t have to be this way. Fitness professionals get into this industry to help others and what better way to have a huge impact than to change the way our youth fitness training programs are run.
Kids no longer get adequate physical education time in schools and they certainly don’t play enough outdoors. They are pinned down in front of televisions, video games and other mindless forms of entertainment to keep them busy.
There was never a need for youth fitness training programs when kids played, but now there is a need. A big one!
If you have a passion for working with youth and would like to start your youth fitness training program, click the image below to check out the Youth Fitness Specialist Certification and start making an impact today!
This is so heart-breaking. But the good news is it can be stopped. here is one easy fix, limit juice intake and give the child more water, this approach will also help the child to build up a tolerence for water.Second fix give the child organic lean protiens not fried stuff like nuggets or fries they may look good in commercials but the child will be obese in a few months if not in intensive care. Third do not reward the child with food.
It has to start with the parents. They need to be informed about nutrition and exercise and the role each plays in the development of their child. With the internet there is no excuse not to know. A caring parent will take the time to research what is best for their family. We as parents have to stop believing that little chubby Johnnie will grow out of his baby fat by himself sooner or later and pay more attention to what he is eating and just how long he plays Black ops on his x-box. Good habits can be taught at a young age, unfortunately so can bad ones. Great work IYCA, we need you!!
There was also a study that showed that a mother’s eating habits and approach to food had a strong influence on the likelihood of their children being healthy eaters.
As fitness professionals its important that we help clients lead healthier lives and make healthier choices so that they might impart that ethos on their children.
Hi Brian…how sad! I pause and don’t even know where to start! That picture brings tears to my eyes! That child is starting out at a disadvantage at the age of 9 months! We need to work even harder to reach parents and children about healthy eating and healthy living habits. I am dedicating my life and efforts to educate students, teachers and parents on the habits of healthy living! Unfortunately our kids and parents are receiving too many unhealthy messages which cause the default behavior to be unhealthy habits. Pictures like this along with my work in schools continue to motivate me to reach out to educate our youth and do all I can to stop this obesity and inactivity epidemic plaguing our country! PE Fit is a nutrition & activity program for students in grades K-12 as well as college freshmand to teach students healthy eating and physical activity habits! Let’s all work together to positively impact our culture! Thanks Brian for what you do!
I am a PE/Health teacher in Nebraska, and I want to start off saying I love your emails!
It is sad to see where our country is currently at when it comes to our overall health. 1 big thing I teach to my kids is “eating attitude.” Everybody eats for taste and not health…..it’s sad!!!
As far as babies are concerned, mothers should be breast feeding for at least a year, and the extra they can store for after they want to ween the child from the body. Freezing breast milk is a great way to continue high quality nourishment for babies up until around 2 years of age.
Bottom line, I feel our nation has to change our food attitude!! Or what I like to call in my classroom “fooditude.”
Mann!~ This is so heartbreaking. I agree, this needs to end, but it starts first with educating the parents. Parents need to understand that they are in charge. They make the rules and decide the direction and ultimate fate of their children’s lives with the decisions they make today. They need to understand that feeding the mouth is not the solution to every situation. Babies dont cry JUST because they are hungry. They need love, attention, stimulation, and interaction. Kids, and babies, apparently need activity, not sugary, gooey foods stuffed down their throats. As a parent, we have to make better decisions about what our children are eating as well as their activities.
The solution is a Paleo i.e. hunter gatherer lifestyle. Agriculture is a 10,000 year old anomaly in human evolutionary diet and our digestive genome did not evolve for it. Protein, vegetables, fruit and no grains, legumes or dairy will keep glucose levels stable and avoid glycation and AGEs, advanced glycation endproducts that age us.
Agreed, this is VERY sad and it does need to start with an education of the parents. It all begins with parents, and being a parent myself I know how easy it can be to give a child food and sit them in front of a tv. Also, take into consideration demographics. A lot of research has been done on poverty and obesity which to me is even more frightening. It used to be the other way around, being heavy meant you were “well” fed, now it means you eat too much junk because it is cheap. The education of those in poverty is needed to help curb this epidemic. Being a recipient of foodstamps, I can understand how easy it is to buy the cheap junk food to make the money last for the month, but I find my kids like when I buy the fruit and veggies on sale. Most stores have fruit if you look for it at $1/lb. or bananas are cheap and fruit is filling and has fiber and natural sugars unlike most juice. Well, I can go on and on with this topic.
Not only is it food, but putting the babies on the floor and learning to move. Too many babies are being kept in car seats or swings and other types of chairs. Lie them on the floor with some toys, they scream for a bit, but they stop and will become used to it and enjoy it. This will also encourge rolling over, crawling and eventually walking at a decent age and not late or requiring PT at such a young age.
Hi Brian, This picture is really sad. We do need to teach the parents about proper nutrition and serving portions. I think as a healthcare professional, we need to educate them about the damage they are doing to this little person’s body. I think most mothers would be upset to know they had harmed their child in some way. Hopefully, through educating them this behavior would stop.
Brian,
This had the same effect on me… I got mad as hell. So much so that I wrote a blog post on the matter…
http://tinyurl.com/4l8xxjc
The bottom line is that it begins with the parents always, but the parents need to feel empowered, and that’s where organizations like the IYCA are critical.
Keep getting the word out, brother!
Clint
It’s very sad to see something like that happen to child that young of age, that is why we as whole have to start from the root of the problem by educating these young parent about health and fitness, in order to gain some knowledge about it.
I agree with this posts above. I feel most of our youth despite their ages are being fed things because parents aren’t educated. Instead of a hamburger and fries from the nearby fast food restaurant, how about a homemade hamburger and celery sticks or carrots. I’m no nutrition pro but it seems small changes like this to an entire family would be a great solution. I teach a fun physical education program in New Orleans for ages 2-5. I created a program that involved basic movements but turned it into fun games that involves colors, shapes, numbers, animals, and much more. Been doing it for 4 months and am already seeing incredible results such as focusing, listening, balancing, and better movements like squatting, kicking, throwing esc. A few of the heavier children I have seen more energy out of them which is great. So I also think some type of controlled physical program is important as well.
This problem (9 month already obese) begins with the Mother. A newborn baby is only as healthy as its mother is. All the food and nutrition (or lack thereof) goes directly from mom to the newborn. THIS problem begins before that newborn is even a life. Yes there needs to be more games and play and better nutrition for our youth. But that 9 mo old did not BECOME obese, it was BORN that way. This problem needs to be addressed at both ends. If not, we will, sadly, continue to see stories like this day after day.
However disturbing this data is, it is not surprising. The level of processed garbage in so many food items alone is staggering and yet people, in particular adults, seem unwilling to educate themselves(not all adults but certainly a very large percentage of them). We have succumbed to a more sedentary lifestyle with overzealous exposure to various forms of social media, 1,001 cable t.v channels to choose from, and all sorts of visually stunning video games further removing ourselves from reality. It is our responsibility to do the best we can to dramatically improve the selection of food we consume and to engage in “real world” training methods(I personally prescribe to a “paleo” approach to eating and perform complex/multi- joint movement patterns). This can and should be introduced to children asap if we expect to influence and raise healthy generations to come. Also, we are competing with commercials and marketing schemes from multi-million/billion dollar corporations that manufacture and sell processed garbage to our children, their target market. The bottom line is that we have to be tough and educate ourselves so that we can give our children a fighting chance. One last thing. You are awesome Brian! i deeply appreciate your passion, honesty, and intelligence. Thank you.
what a problem we have created.
I don’t know of a “simple fix”, as it has taken since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution to start the break down of the support structure.i.e. extended family and community which all played a part in raising/training a child.
If it was as simple as getting information where it was needed,we would be in a perfect world.
Having recently worked with and observed a large grouo of adolescent girls, I can safely say that they were all over weight and “unfit”, which was a real concern as I was working as a sports coach.
Food is not so much a problem as is the way we think about things, like a child saying they feel hungry, when they are actually feeling dehyrated and need water.My wife and I fostered children for a number of years and it did not take us long to realise this was the case, even with babies/ toddlers.
As the mother of a 17 month old baby who is in the 75% for height and weight I would love to say that this problem is easily fixed, but it is not. Myself and my two sister in laws all had babies within 6 months of each other. We all took different approaches to feeding. Now I speak with them and other moms I am astounded at the number of people who have insanely picky eaters, I am blessed with an easy eater. However, I watch these moms choose the strangest substitutes for real food. But that is not the kicker. It was the mom who bought her 6 yr old a mcdonalds double cheeseburger and fries for her snack before getting on the ice to skate.
Parents need to take responsibility for learning what is appropriate for a child ton eat. They also need to set positive examples of what is healthy to eat. I struggle with this point with my husband. There is plenty of education and information out there, we just need to educate the parents on how to care enough to educate themselves.
The state of American education and lack of physical education is revolting and needs to be reassessed and corrected. The fact that students do not get daily physical activity at school speaks for itself.
I hope we as members of the IYCA community are able to help facilitate some change in the areas.
Yes, Brian the problem needs to be tackled at community level by educating couples, I would list out as under…
– couples should be requested to become fit , at least
physically active before they plan the kid. Healthy and
active parents will have a healthy baby.
– during preganancy also level of physical activity and food
intake should be monitored well
– the quantity as well as the type of babyfood should be well
planned even the no. of feed also should be fixed.
The surgeon Generals report rightly said ” LACK OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IS DETRIMENTAL TO YOUR HEALTH” Let us all start propagating the need of exercise and not wait till the date it becomes a law to exercise daily ( just like smoking and chewing of tobbaco ). Let us all understand the value of good health.
Since we are talking about infants exercise is not an option but simple movement and activity is. Parents have to interact with their children as they develop into those critcal phases where they can suport their own head, begin to crawl and begin to walk. I can’t say this loudly enough…Stop putting babies in those swing or stationary devices that prohibit natural movement.
Secondly nutrition is key. As a man I can’t speak to breast feeding because I truly don’t understand the process mothers have to endure so I respect all peoples choice here. But when you feed your child these fortified baby formulas and foods you have to realize that they are designed to be used in very early stages and earlier than most parents believe the child has to be transitioned off these products and on to natural foods. Yes the best answer is blend your own and use organic but this is a personal choice as well but the transition to real whole unprocessed food has to start and soon.
Last thing I will say here is sugar! The earlier you begin to get your child on plain water the better. I am not an evil person so, yes juice has some value but remember most is made from concentrate and I don’t trust the industry to dilute it for me so please water down those juices from day 1. The kids will drink what they become used to and sugar is by far a major issue for weight gain, the destroyer of their gums and teeth and alters their mental balance. Hello sugar highs and lows.
These are my three cents worth and I encourage all parents to stop and think. The old adage is if its too good to be true it probably is. Well if it makes the most important job too easy its probably not the right thing to do.
I diagree with most of the previous emails. We, as a society, are inundated with information. It’s all over our tv, internet, schools, etc. Most people KNOW what to do. They just don’t or won’t do it. We need to “hit them (people, parents) where it hurts”. That is, in their wallets. Gov’t needs to put a tax on sugar, provide incentives for those who exercise regularly thus maintaining their health, and allow tax breaks for the same. We, as PE teachers, coaches, and trainers, need to continue doing our part by speaking with kids, parents, provide free informational clinics to the public, and lobbying our gov’t representatives to push forward with needed action. I have been coaching and teaching for 29 years and nothing seems to work unless we affect a person’s pursestrings.
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