Exercises for Teenage Girls: Motivating Teens to Exercise
Creative Exercises for Teens
Why do we need exercises for children? According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average child spends over five hours every day on some type of screen media. The National Association for Sports and Physical Education (NASPE) activity guidelines for school age kids is one hour or more daily. Compare these two positions in light of the increasing obesity problems in America, and the need for more exercises for teenage girls, as well as all children, becomes apparent.
Exercise Benefits
Exercise is the key to total wellness, but what can parents do? Many teenage girls have a misconception about exercise. They think they have to lift weights, run marathons, or break a sweat to exercise. In reality, there are fun and easy ways to incorporate exercises into your family routine.
Aerobic exercises and weight bearing exercises are the best exercises for girls. These types of exercise keep them fit and healthy, while protecting their future wellness by building lean muscle mass, strong bones, and healthy hearts. New research results show that exercise is the best preventative medicine for decreasing the risk of serious diseases like diabetes and breast cancer.
Benefits of aerobic exercise are:
- Strengthens and protects cardiovascular system and heart health.
- Develops large muscle groups and builds bones.
- Stabilizes blood sugar levels and regulates weight.
- Improves self-confidence and self-esteem.
Exercises - Getting Started
A combination of weight-bearing or strength training exercises, and aerobic exercises are the best mixture of exercises for girls. Weight-bearing exercises like weight-lifting, jogging, hiking, or stair climbing, increase the metabolism and protect the body’s lean muscle mass. Weight-bearing exercises build strong bones for better endurance, strength, and flexibility.
Some of the best ways to exercise are by participating in sports activities at school. Playing tennis, racquet ball, basketball, or soccer are good ways to increase physical activity and encourage exercise. If your child is not a sports buff, here are some other popular ways for teenage girls to get more physical activity:
- Walking with friends, walking pets, race or power walking, climbing stairs, walking on treadmills, mall walking, walking while chatting on the phone, or walking for special causes like Relay for Life.
- Playing games on the Wii. Wii Fit Plus has games for strength training, aerobics, yoga, and balance, and Wii Sports.
- Swimming or water activities like water aerobics, water-skiing, kayaking, surfing, or wake boarding.
- Martial arts like Tae Bo, kick boxing, yoga, or Tai Chi.
- Playing ball, Frisbee, tag games, relay games, croquet, badminton, or yard darts.
- Roller skating, in-line skating, ice-skating, or cross-country skiing.
There are no magic bullet methods for finding exercises for teenage girls. Find out what motivates your child, and help her develop an exercise program to suit her personality and activity needs. Remember, the best way to motivate your teen to exercise more is by setting the example, so gear up your physical activity, and be a positive role model.
Resources
https://kidshealth.org/parent/positive/family/tv_habits.html
https://www.netwellness.uc.edu/healthtopics/obesity/strengthtraining.cfm
https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/everyone/guidelines/index.html