Why Active Play is so Important

The key to a healthy life is physical activity at a young age. Activities should incorporate many different skills through a variety of forms, and should be maintained throughout a child’s day. Safe, stimulating environments are important, as are positive role models.

Making sure children are active

Young children need regular, vigorous, physical activity – active play – to develop and grow properly. Active play strengthens bones, muscles and the brain, and establishes connections between all of them.

A physically active lifestyle is crucial for life-long health and physical and emotional wellbeing. To develop good habits, children should be physically active every day.

If children don’t develop good habits of physical activity when they are young, they increase their risk of being overweight or obese later in life. Obesity is linked to a number of health and mental health problems.

What is meant by physical activity?
Physical activity means taking part in active play and games that use the large muscles of the body. Whole-body play of almost any kind, especially outdoor play, provides the movement that children need. Play that uses the hands and fingers is important in developing fine-motor skills.

Active play is also important for children with a disability, though some activities may have to be modified to ensure children’s safety and to help them have success.

Active play is vigorous enough if children breathe faster and deeper, start to sweat and get warm, can feel their heart beat faster or have redness in their cheeks.

How much physical activity?
Children under the age of six should be physically active for a short time during every waking hour.

• For Infants (up to one year): Daily activity is important. Provide toys and simple objects that encourage them to move.
• Toddlers (1-3 years): At least 30 minutes of adult-organized activity daily and from 60 minutes to several hours per day of unstructured physical activity is recommended – especially outdoors.
• Preschoolers (3-5 years): At least 60 minutes of structured physical activity every day, and from 60 minutes to several hours of daily unstructured physical activity is recommended – especially outdoors.

Reducing screen time is also important
Children up to two years of age shouldn’t spend any time watching television, and children from ages three to five should be limited to one to two hours of screen time each day.

At what age should physical activity start?
As soon as possible! Encourage children to roll over and crawl by putting a toy out of their reach. Don’t put it too far away. Let them play with it when they’ve reached it.

Remember to provide a safe, stimulating, and interesting environment in which children can physically explore their world.

Kinds of activities

• Body control skills - like balance, moving the arms and legs in rhythmic ways to music, and developing coordination.
• Locomotor skills - like crawling, walking, running, skipping, jumping, leaping, rolling.
• Sending and receiving skills - like rolling a ball, throwing, catching, kicking and hitting things with a bat or stick.

Children should learn to be active indoors and outside, on ice, in the snow, and in water. They learn from positive role models.