August 2010: Get Kids Moving This Summer
Summer is a time for fun — but it also is a time when youth can fall into unhealthy habits that contribute to childhood obesity. Children need to stay active, healthy, and busy during their break from school. Part of the Let's Move initiative encourages adults to get involved and make a commitment to helping youth become physically fit and reap the rewards of exercise. Join thousands of people across the country in the enjoyable and rewarding experience of improving kids' physical fitness.
Active Families
When kids are surrounded by friends and families that are interested in physical activity, they are more likely to participate. Parents can encourage their children by showing them how to warm up properly, making sure they never play through any type of pain, emphasizing that winning is not the reason for playing any sport, and letting them choose the activity and keeping the focus on having fun.
Other ways that parents can promote physical fitness include:
- Giving children toys that encourage physical activity like balls, kites, and jump ropes
- Limiting TV time and keeping the TV out of a child’s bedroom
- Walking around the block after a meal
- Encouraging children to sign up to volunteer at Little League Challenger Division baseball, where kids with physical or mental disabilities play in their own league and are paired with a peer "buddy"
- Picking a cause the family cares about — like autism research – and then finding and participating in a related walkathon
Video: Drew Brees - Moving Everyday
Active Communities
How communities are designed and function can promote—or inhibit—physical activity for children and adults. Children’s ability to be physically active in their community depends on whether the community is safe and walkable, with good sidewalks and reasonable distances between destinations and access to structured play opportunities.
Some ways that communities can promote physical fitness include:
- Offering effective ways to get students safely walking and biking to school (with programs like Safe Routes to Schools)
- Finding creative ways to make safe passages for young people between homes and neighborhoods, schools, and afterschool activities. For elementary students, the "walking school bus" has been a successful model, in which adults walk to school with a group of students.
- Increasing opportunities for unstructured physical activities in parks and playgrounds
Visit the Let's Move physical activity page to learn more, view stories of service about exercise to get motivated, and read the Let's Move blog for the most up-to-date information on related happenings and progress.
Take the Challenge
The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) has joined forces with Let’s Move as well as the Department of Health and Human Services and the President's Council on Physical Fitness to make physical activity a core component of their summer initiative, Let's Read. Let’s Move. Working with nonprofits nationwide, this initiative aims to get America's youth and their families active and involved in physical activity through service, by focusing on activities like the following:
- Building or rehabbing a playground
- Clearing a walking or hiking trail
- Sponsoring a sports tournament or camp for kids
- Taking the President's Active Lifestyle Challenge
You can join Let's Read. Let's Move., CNCS, and all their partners by committing to the President's Active Lifestyle Challenge too. This week, a challenge was issued to all federal agencies — asking each of them to participate in the United We Serve: Let's Read. Let's Move. summer initiative by competing as agencies against one another in the President’s Active Lifestyle Challenge.
One of the key goals of Let's Read. Let's Move. is to encourage kids and adults to earn a Presidential Active Lifestyle Award (PALA). The PALA encourages adults and youth to build and maintain a healthy and active lifestyle by making physical fitness a part of their daily routine. To win an award, competitors must:
- Perform 30 minutes of activity a day for adults or 60 minutes a day for youth under 18
- At least five days per week
- For at least six weeks between August 9th and September 31st
In addition to federal agencies, United We Serve: Let's Read. Let's Move has encouraged nonprofits and other organizations to participate in this six week challenge — starting August 9th and running through October 1st. We encourage you to get involved and ask that you track your activity in an easy, online profile on the President’s Challenge website. Here's how:
- First create your activity log by visiting www.PresidentsChallenge.org
- Join the Corporation for National and Community Service group
- Group ID Number: 91834
- Group Member ID/Name: United We Serve
Finally, to add a challenge to a challenge — we ask that you also consider incorporating service into your fitness activities. There are organizations across the country that infuse physical activity into volunteering. Take OMB Director Peter Orszag's lead — read more about his run with the Mighty Milers. Not only do we want you to take the challenge — we want you to encourage and recruit your family, friends, neighbors, and anyone else who might be interested in fun, healthy summer challenge.
Follow along on the Serve.gov blog and on Twitter @ServeDotGov to receive updates about the challenge. Feel free to tweet the UWS team what you're doing to participate. Let’s show everyone else what we're made of — take the United We Serve Challenge and this summer, Let’s Move!
