Children/Teenagers Articles

Getting Kids & Adolescents Excited About Exercise Children are not simply small adults when it comes to getting and staying fit; they present their own unique challenges in terms of exercise motivation and adherence. By Randi Rotwein-Pivnick, MA, MFT I It seems that every time you turn on the news these days, someone is proclaiming the benefits of participating in a regular exercise program. We'...

nutrition By Jennie McCary, MS, RD, LD tackling teens' eating disorders What fitness professionals can do to help adolescent girls and boys. The media's current focus on childhood obesity and its long-term health consequences is timely and justified, given that the number of young people who are overweight or obese is at an all-time high. But in a society already so preoccupied with physical appe...

BY CARRIE MYERS SMITH G e t S m a r t A b o u t H o m e S c h o o l P E Tr a i n i n g Did you know that during the 2000 to 2001 school year, 1.5 to 1.9 million children in the United States were home-schooled by their parents and that this number is increasing by 7 to 15 percent each year (National Home Education Research Institute 2002)? Why should this matter to you? Because in more than half ...

specialties Understanding What Te e n s T h i n k A b o u t E x e r c i s e Author Marla Richmond shares how and why she started working with teens and what she's learned from these young clients. As a health and fitness educator and an exercise physiologist, I have enjoyed working with a variety of populations for many years. However, I began working with teens only recently. I knew the percenta...

From Dallas to Montreal, from Chicago to Los Angeles, youth-based personal training and group classes are hot. The burst in popularity may be due to growing concern about the epidemic of childhood inactivity and obesity, a stronger push to groom athletes from a young age, greater scientific acceptance of resistance training for children, or other motivations—and press...

By providing sound direction, good food sources and a nurturing environment, parents can help ensure that teens make healthy dietary decisions now and develop good eating habits that last a lifetime. To offer your teens optimal support with their nutrition, use these tips from Jenna A. Bell-Wilson, MS, RD, LD, consultant for New Mexico Sports and W...

Fitness professionals know that the number of overweight or obese children in the United States and other developed countries is increasing at an alarming rate. However, it is difficult to track the prevalence of this obesity epidemic, since there is such variability in how experts define whic...

“Self-esteem isn’t everything; it’s just there’s nothing without it.”—Gloria Steinem Many women whom you train or teach struggle with body image issues, eating disorders and inactivity. While most try to change destructive behavior p...

In the fight against childhood obesity, the school environment has received a good deal of attention because of its potential to influence a large number of school-aged children and their families. This school year, a new federal mandate went into effect that requires school districts throughout...

People who constantly diet tend to have lower body satisfaction than those who are content with their weight. Now a new study shows that dieting itself may be a precursor to eating disorders in adolescents who are already emotionally vulnerable to poor body image. A study published in the April issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that dieting and...