Tips to get your kids fit

On May 26, US First Lady Michelle Obama continued her campaign against childhood obesity by launching her summer fitness camp on the South Lawn of the White House. Here are some tips to get your kids fit with you.

The message for American children by Obama is "Let's Move" and make sure to get some sort of physical activity for sixty minutes daily.

According to the political blog HuffingtonPost.com, Obama told the children, "What I want you guys to do is to make a commitment that you will do your best to get that 60 minutes in every single day. Will you promise me that?"

Your children need your support to make their own health and fitness commitments. In Europe and US, the likelihood is your child or one of their friends need some help as one in three American children overweight and half of the European population in battling the bulge.

KidsHealth.org, a site to assist parents, children and teens on health and development issues, recommends children aged 2 and up get an hour of structured and unstructured physical activity.

Additionally,  exercise should be varied similar to adults and encourage endurance, strength and flexibility. Here is an example given for each:

- run away from the kid who's "it" (endurance)
- cross the monkey bars (strength)
- bend down to tie their shoes (flexibility)

Enrolling your kids in team sports (soccer, volleyball, tennis) is one way to get them active, as well as dance classes and family-fitness activities like bike excursions, boulder climbing, hikes with healthy picnics and swimming games like Marco-Polo.

Also setting sport schedules and showing your children how to be fit can go a long way. Make racing up the stairs a competition, not a task and try going for after dinner walks to talk about the day instead of lounging in front of the television.