by Stephanie A. Smith

Created on: February 14, 2009

Thanks to today's culture where it is perfectly acceptable to spend your days watching TV, then blogging about it on the internet, very few kids are getting the exercise that they need to stay healthy. But society is not only to blame, the vast majority of blame for this behavior goes to the parents. Active and sedentary children are usually that way because their parents were that way as well. But being active is not the only thing that you have to do to get your kids active. Most kids ( and adults, by the way) have a notion that exercise is a chore that has to be done after the dishes. Nobody wants to do chores. You also have to be more imaginative about what the word activity means. Most people seem to believe that activity has to be some kind of organized sport or running or something like that, when activity can be something much more mundane or fun and something that you actually want to do. Here are some tip on how to get your kids-and yourself more active and have fun while doing it.

There are opportunities to walk everywhere. This may not sound like much fun, but it in itself doesn't have to be. You are just getting to the place where you are going to have fun. If a place is within a half hour's walk, then walk there instead of driving there. There is no better way to start any kind of fitness program than by walking. Also, walking to more places keeps you from having to run your car, saving gas, wear and tear on the car, money, and even helping the environment. One tip: get a pedometer to measure how far you have walked. Depending on your stride, 10,000 steps is close to five miles.

Turn off the TV and the computer. Make rules on how much time your kids are allowed on the TV and internet. The average kid spends three to six hours everyday glued to a screen of some kind. One rule that I have found useful with my little brother is one hour of activity for every hour of time with his video game.

Get bikes or rollerblades for everyone. Go biking together or spend a day at the park learning how to stay upright on rollerblades. This is a great family activity, and it takes a lot to get moving and keep moving. Aproximately 20,000,000 bikes are sold every year in the United States, according to an article that I read in Time Magazine, but they do no good if they are not used (and a lot of these bikes are hardly used). Other great things to buy to get your kids active are scateboards and scooters. Make sure you have all of the associated gear, though, like helmets

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