How Physical Activity And Diet Can Improve Kids Grades
There is a lot more you can do for your kid’s education than to just drop them off at school every day or even provide them an after-school tutor?
Did you know that healthy eating habits and regular physical activity can do more for your child’s potential to excel than anything else? It’s true and there’s plenty of evidence to back this up.
Unfortunately, due to the lack of funding and programs like “No Child Left Behind” are making it more and more difficult for your child to eat well and exercise properly at school, rendering your parenting decisions more vital than ever before.
Physical Activity
Not only does a child need approximately 60 minutes of physical activity every day to keep fit, but also, a growing young body needs exercise to develop properly, in mind, body, and spirit. And yet, I don’t know if you have noticed or not but our schools have drastically cut recess time AND P.E. classes out of the daily schedule. This not only makes it harder for children to concentrate on their academics during the day, but it’s obviously a leading cause of the childhood obesity epidemic, and childhood Diabetes 2 that’s sweeping the nation.
When I was in elementary school, some 35 years ago, I had no less than four recess periods a day plus P.E. every day all the way through 6th grade. This year, my oldest daughter who is in 5th grade has had her recess times cut down to two and the P.E. time has been cut down to once a week. Twice a week/every other week. That to me is tragic.
(UPDATE 2017: My youngest is now in 5th grade and my oldest is now a Senior in High School and yet nothing has changed for the better.)
While there are plenty of studies that show the connection between physical fitness and academic performance and overall brain health, it’s still a challenge for school administrators who feel they must focus on academics or risk losing their funding. One researcher, Dr. John Ratey of Harvard, does brain research on physical fitness and calls the physical activity “miracle growth for the brain.”
Dr Ratey also says, a lot of research suggests that exercising moderately and regularly stimulates brain regions involved in memory function to release a chemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)
Imagine how much your child’s grades would improve if they just had better memory function!
Ken Reed, Director of the Center for the Advancement of Physical Education says “The situation isn’t good and it’s getting worse. Physical activity levels have dropped dramatically in the last 25 years and we believe there’s a direct link there to childhood obesity, as well as a dramatic increase in type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and cholesterol levels in children. It’s primarily because of budget problems in schools. Also, the focus is on the educational assessment test that almost every state has due to No Child Left Behind and other factors. It’s become the scorecard for administrators and teachers. The focus is on reading, writing, and arithmetic. Parents are also picking up on the state assessment scores as their scorecards on how their school’s doing, so they put more pressure on schools to focus on those areas. Something’s got to give, and, unfortunately, , it’s usually PE, music, and art classes.”
Despite this, it’s still an uphill battle for teachers and parents alike to work the time into the schedule.
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Ideally, school systems would understand and adopt the notion that our kids need more “free time”, outdoors especially. Since our children spend nearly 7 hours at school, plus up to an hour every day on the bus – mostly in a sedentary position, it’s critical that they have the time after school to get outdoors, and perhaps even play a sport with their peers to get the minimum of 60 minutes a day of vigorous physical activity.
Diet
According to statistics cited in Eric Schlosser’s book, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, the worst-quality food goes to fast food restaurants, schools, and pets, in that order—a pretty scary thought when we consider that fast food restaurants and the school cafeteria make up a large percentage of what is forming the dietary pattern of our future generation.
It’s easy to see the food vs. performance relationship in school kids. One example, Appleton Central Alternative High School in Appleton, Wisconsin, implemented a health-food program in 1997 and saw a dramatic increase in student performance. By removing soda and candy machines, and changing the cafeteria fare from the standard burgers, fries, etc., to salad, veggies, whole-grain bread, fresh water, and healthy recipes, they saw grades go up, truancies go down, and disciplinary matters nearly vanish.
Mary Bruyette, an Appleton teacher says “If you’ve been guzzling Mountain Dew and eating chips and you’re flying all over the place, I don’t think you’re going to pick up a whole lot in class.” While there’s little doubt that better food choices would increase scholastic performance, there’s also little chance that anything is going to change, at least not on a wide scale anytime soon. That’s why as parents, it is extremely important that you feed your kids healthy, balanced meals and perhaps even up the “homemade” lunch options. Plus, we need to encourage as much physical activity as reasonably possible.
The solution is for each one of us to keep trying. One person can—and always has—made a difference. Because one turns into two, which turns into three, and pretty soon you have an army on your side demanding change. “If we could just get the soccer mom phenomenon working in physical education, we could rally parents and that would be a great advantage,” says Reed.
Another strategy is to instill healthy eating habits for the entire family. Keep the processed foods and pop out of the home. Save them for special occasions only. That is a start anyway. Unfortunately eating healthy sometimes is not enough. That’s where high-quality supplementation comes in. I love the products that 4Life Research has to offer. As a family, we have been using many, many of their products for the past 8 years. (update 2017; 16 years) And I can’t tell you how much we have benefited just in the “wellness” factor.
Be the change you want to see!
To your great health!
Holistic Health Warrior
More Thoughts from Mellisa
Question: What are you without an immune system?
Answer: You are dead.
As morbid as it may sound, it’s true. When your immune system is weak you will get sick. When your immune system completely fails you will die.
If I could show you a way to boost your Natural Killer Cells by up to 437%, would you be interested in hearing more? Of course you would.
Resources:
4Life Research Products – 4Life Transfer Factor Chewables