Children have a natural energy about them. It would not be rude to call someone’s child an energizer bunny. Not all children manage to keep that energy as they get older. School, examinations and the race of life force them to make choices. But building exercise into their routine is easily one of the best choices you can make. Allow me to explain.
One of the best measures of health is something called VO2MAX. VO2MAX measures the amount of oxygen your body can take up at a given time. It is a measure of the volume of oxygen per kilogram of weight. So imagine that as a child, you are active. You become athletic as you go along. You train, you run, you skip, you play. You will find that your VO2MAX is high.
Here is where it gets magical. Let us assume you are comparing two groups of people. The first was athletic. The other wasn’t. As you age, the athletic group will see a dip in their VO2MAX. So will the unathletic group. Except the unathletic group will see a much sharper dip in their numbers as they age. They will also find it much harder to lift their metrics.
Put simply, a forty year old who was unfit and unatheletic all their lives will have to work much harder to match the fitness level of a fit fourty year old. Your inability to find the time as a growing adult is catching up. If you want a simple metric to compare, use hours. A fit person can maintain fitnes with thirty minutes of exercise. An unfit person would need three to four times as much. If this was not bad enough, the later you start, the more you will need to do.
I know most people look for freedom. It gives them the ability to choose what they do with their time. The greatest gift you can give your child is the time to engage in physical activities. They will thank you for the rest of their lives.
