FEATURE FOCUS: TACKLING CHILDHOOD OBESITY
Call to action In the recovery phase of the pandemic, we cannot afford complacency and should encourage young people to focus on their overall wellbeing rather than commit their full attention to catching up with their academic achievement. Adopting a kinaesthetic based approach to learning like ‘Shake It Up’ that improves the physical, social, emotional and intellectual outcomes for our youth or scheduling exercise and physical activity into the daily routine of young people can improve their overall engagement. Following the pandemic, the power to take action and support young peoples’ health, wellbeing and intellectual development lies within the school management, teachers and parents. Physical activity is hugely important in the fight against obesity. Activities such as sport and dance that encompass community, cognitive development, active learning, creativity and fitness can help develop the physical, social and emotional landscapes of our future generation.
Picture: Paul Watt Photography
pass on their skills, enabling a cascade of increased physical activity through dance. Starting in 2016, YDance also delivered Shake
It Up (2016-2020), an initiative to support the national goal of improving attainment. It linked closely to the Scottish Government’s Attainment Challenge - a large scale four-year education programme focusing specifically on reducing the attainment gap between advantaged and disadvantaged children in Glasgow, North Lanarkshire, West Dunbartonshire and Clackmannanshire. The programme was designed to enable children to learn a range of curriculum subjects through dance and active learning to leave a sustainable legacy of teachers with the skills and knowledge to continue to develop this kind of integrated curricular lesson delivery. The Shake It Up sessions covered a range of subjects including numeracy, literacy, health & well-being and social-sciences through dance. The Shake It Up project introduced a way for schools to experience dance as an intervention which supports learning and aims to increase engagement through a kinaesthetic process. Most recently, as a result of the coronavirus
pandemic, many young people have found additional barriers and challenges accessing physical activity within their daily lives. Lockdown has had a significant impact on children as many have reduced their fitness and physical skills. This time last year, motivations were high as families tried to remain active while households across the UK tried to hold on to some form of normality by adapting and juggling various aspects of their busy lives. We were encouraged to break up our day and make use of the recommended daily activity through local walks and at home workouts using YouTube, zoom and virtual classrooms. We experienced a boom of free online activities made available through social media such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. YDance were one of many organisations who offered free weekly online classes to promote physical activity at both primary and secondary level. Through our YDance Challenge, Style 32 and Shake It Up Bitesize we aimed to inspire physical activity, creativity and learning through dance. However, we can’t help but notice that overall morale, motivation and engagement online has dropped
April 2021
throughout the second lockdown. Due to the long winter months, playing and walking outdoors has become less of a priority and sitting in front of a screen in the house an easier option. This year, screens have played a dominant role in our children’s’ lives. As the novelty of online learning has worn off, they are more likely to watch TV, surf the internet and play with friends on a virtual domain than take part in a class, go swimming, meet friends in the playground or at the local park to play in a range of outdoor sports or ride their bike. Perhaps the lack of social integration has hindered the physical engagement in the virtual domain as a community energy and humanistic interaction is a key motivator within many activities, particularly sport and dance. In addition, levels of stress and depression have
been climbing at an alarming rate in young people throughout the pandemic and science shows the negative effects of such states of mind and emotions can have on learning (Willis, 2015), overall, impacting their social and academic outcomes. As children return to school, we must consider ways for them to reconnect with learning, the building, staff, each other, and themselves. Adopting an embodied active approach to learning can not only promote physical activity but help children improve curriculum-based outcomes that support student achievement. It has been proven that exercise accelerates
learning and enhances creativity, Batey (2008) explains physical activity can spark growth in the hippocampus, helping to create new connections between existing ideas thus supporting the learning process. The most effective form of exercise for
increasing mental performance is aerobic exercise (also known as cardio) which can include running, biking and swimming. However, Batey (2008) states that you experience the largest mental gains when you combine aerobic exercise with an activity that requires advanced motor skills: the more complex the movements, the more complex the synaptic connections. Therefore, physical activity such as tennis and dancing before learning a difficult subject or tackling a complex project won’t only improve health and fitness but can help young people achieve.
References: Brown, T., Moore, T.H.M., Hooper, L., Gao, Y.,
Zayegh, A., Ijaz, S., Elwenspoek, M., Foxen, S.C., Magee, L., O'Malley, C., Waters, E., Summerbell, C.D. (2019) ‘Interventions for preventing obesity in children’, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Issue 7. [Online] Available at:
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.100 2/
14651858.CD001871.pub4/full Ratey, J. J., & Hagerman, E. (2008). Spark: The
revolutionary new science of exercise and the brain. New York: Little, Brown. Singh, A. S., Mulder, C., Twisk, J. W., van
Mechelen, W., & Chinapaw, M. J. (2008). ‘Tracking of childhood overweight into adulthood: a systematic review of the literature’, Obesity reviews: an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity, 9(5), [online]. Available at:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1 467-789X.2008.00475.x Willis, J., 2015. How The Brain Works--And
How Students Can Respond. [online] Available at:
https://www.teachthought.com/learning/how- the-brain-works-and-how-students-can-respond/
Picture: Paul Watt Photography
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