Opens in new window. Teaching the health-related benefits associated with physical activity is a great way to help students value their physical education experience.
Physical activity is the key to the physical, mental and emotional development of students.
Forty per cent of school age children possess one or more of the risk factors related to coronary heart disease. Physical activity is vital to all aspects of normal growth and development, and the benefits are widely recognized. Along with this recognition is the increasing awareness that childhood is the time to begin the development of active, healthy lifestyles. Physically inactive children are more likely to become sedentary adults. With an inactive lifestyle now recognized as the fourth major risk of heart disease, after cigarette smoking, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol encouraging students to live actively reduces the chances of health risks later in life.