family exercise - fitknitchick

Children don’t get enough exercise: monkey see, monkey do

Today, the Canadian annual report on child and youth activity was published. The verdict? Kids don’t get enough exercise.

Why am I not surprised? Adults don’t get enough exercise either and children mimic the actions of their elders.

Best advice for getting kids off the couch and moving? Get adults off the couch and moving!

I’ve written a number of posts about family time, exercise and modelling healthy habits for our children. If you have five minutes in your day, go and read one of them and commit to getting yourself and your children moving today!

And check out my interview with reporter Lauren La Rose, published online today!

Too much screen time, too little play time for Canadian kids

Do your children engage in unstructured, non-electronic play time?

How do you ‘motivate’ your children to go out and play?

Scooters, bikes and feet; family play-out any one?

Today’s the last day of the first of my summer holidays (yes, I’m taking another week off in August!). Back to work tomorrow (not that I’m complaining; I have the best job in the world).

I needed to get some exercise, but didn’t want to go to the gym (when you work in a gym, it’s often hard to get your workout in without stopping to socialize with colleagues, class participants and clients; something I love to do, but not on the last day of vacation).

The kids needed to get some exercise, but good luck getting them to agree unless you call it something else. To borrow a phrase from one of my favorite fitness bloggers, I suggested we all go on a ‘play-out’ (like a workout, but more fun ).

So I laced up my runners, grabbed my iPod and some water, tossed the kids’ scooters in the trunk and headed for the nearby park (we are truly fortunate to live in a community that preserves green space and makes walking and cycling trails a priority).

Since hubby likes to cycle, I suggested that he meet us there and ‘entertain’ the children while I got a quick run in (I am not normally a runner, but I so enjoyed my treadmill runs while on holiday, I thought I’d give it a whirl).

I parked the car about 1.5 kilometers from our destination; the skateboard/scooter park, two geo caches that we visit frequently and, my daughter’s favorite, the ice cream shop. My plan was to walk with them as they scootered, meet up with my husband, go for a run, then catch up with them on their way back to the car.

The kids happily scootered along,

stopping to pick (and eat!) huckleberries along the way.

There was much excitement at the second geo cache (with some squabbling over who would choose first, of course).

The big hill proved too tempting to resist and the rolling began (do you remember doing this as a child? I certainly do and now understand why my mom wasn’t so big on it; think grass stains…).

I went for a run; about 6 kilometers in just under 30 minutes. Not so bad, given that I’m not a runner

Back home for a healthy lunch, day 2 of ‘The Eat Clean Diet Stripped‘. Brown rice, sockeye salmon and citrus-pineapple-pepper salsa left over from dinner last night, all served with wilted greens (fresh from my garden). Looks yummy, doesn’t it?