Fitness as medicine?

As parents, we do everything we can to help our children grow up healthy, happy and successful.  With the increasing pace of life, how do we fit it all in?  If 30 minutes a day would greatly decrease their risks of obesity, anxiety, depresion, diabetes and heart disease and greatly increase their their confidence, their ability to learn, interact with others and sleep, would you do it?  Obviously!  This panacea is EXERCISE and 30 minutes a day is the dosage.  This is not radical information but new research is showing us how urgent getting active is. It can’t wait until tomorrow, or after the snow melts, or when you find time.  It has to happen TODAY and tomorrow and the days after that!  But it doesn’t have to hurt.  Check out this clip.  It’s pretty long (9 min 19 sec) but it’s worth watching until the end!

A Doctor-Professor answers the old question “What is the single best thing we can do for our health” in a completely new way.  Dr. Mike Evans is founder of the Health Design Lab at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, an Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of Toronto, and a staff physician at St. Michael’s Hospital.

Here’s are two CBC articles on the importance of physical fitness on learning.  Physical activity creates an ideal climate in the brain for learning.  There’s no arguing that our moving is MAGIC!

Brain Gains

Morning Exercise to spark kids’ learning