Why Family Fitness Today Is Much More Than Physical

Family fitness today is no longer just physical fitness. Although it’s well known that mind and body are not separate, recent physiological and neurological laboratory test data has revealed that exercise creates the building blocks for learning, guarding against stress, higher thinking skills, increased attention span, longevity, and resistance to depression and anxiety. Today parents must recognize that “fitness” in the larger sense of the world MUST come first to raise a healthy and successful child. One of the most powerful ways that children learn is through the process of imitation. They repeat the behaviors and incorporate the values that they see from others. Parents can make a positive, lasting impression by being a good role-model and expanding the notion of what “fitness” means in today’s changing world.  As neuroscience research about the brain and fitness unfolds, we must expand our ideas about what it really means to be “fit”.  The first priority of parents today must be to develop a positive fitness attitude for children and to understand the powerful range of effects for exercise in their children’s lives.

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