Play together to stay alive together
Play together to stay alive together
By MICHAEL BLAXLAND
FAMILY A’s children spend their weekends running around the sports fi elds while the parents spend hours in the car driving them to events and then recovering for the rest of the weekend. Family B has a nice quiet weekend because the children are busy on their iPods and MSN.
Sound familiar?
These two scenarios have faults, according to a Newcastle University researcher who is trying to get families together. The parents in Family A aren’t exercising and neither are the children in Family B (although peace may be reigning in the household).
PhD candidate in the university’s priority research centre for health behaviour Lorraine Paras is a running a program which aims to increase the fi tness levels of parents and their primary school-aged children by showing them how they can be fi t and active together – as a family.
Ms Paras said other programs in the Hunter community just targeted fathers and their children or mums and their daughters. “The FamilyFIT program is the fi rst of its kind that involves the whole family,” she said.
“Parents and the family/home environment play a key role in determining children’s activity levels.
“Our approach involves families attending eight sessions, held at a local venue. The program will provide relevant information, useful strategies and a great range of resources, based on the latest research to help the family get fi t and active together.
“Parents and children will take part in
FAMILY FUN: A new program wants parents and children to come together.
a variety of novel and fun, health-related activities and games that they can do together as a family.”
Ms Paras said the program was important because:
• many parents did not realise that their children were inactive. Most parents thought their children were running around all day at school (at recess and lunch) but this was often not the case;
• many parents didn’t know the recommendations for how much time their children (or they) should spend being active each day or the type of activities they should be doing;
• it didn’t matter if people were thin or overweight, taking part in regular physical activity had important health benefi ts for children and adults. The university will start recruiting families shortly, with the FamilyFIT program beginning in school term four.
To sign up for the project, potential participants can contact Ms Paras on 4913 8613 or via email at
Lorraine.Paras@newcastle
.edu.au.
view the digital edition online at
www.newcastlepost.com.au
THE NEWCASTLE POST Wednesday, August 17, 2011
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