Teen Fitness :: Why It Is So Important

50 years ago it would have been very hard for a teenager to not be active. Walking to school, working a part-time job and riding bicycles are just of the few common activities that surrounded teens. Fitness for teenagers was a natural and over weight teens was much less common. With television, game consoles and computers came an age of activity for the brain and not for the body. It affected not only the teens but their parents as well which in turn affected the teens in another way. Why be fit when your parents are not fit? Or perhaps more accurately, why do any physical activity and eat well if your parents are not.

Teenagers go through tremendous stress and change during a relatively short period of time. This change can easily make long lasting impressions whether they are good or bad ones. Habits and ways are formed that continue, sometimes long into adult life. If the habits are ones where exercise and fitness don’t play a part then these habits become very hard to break. Everything starts with a thought, so if the thought is never there to exercise or lead active lifestyles, it becomes hard to start.

Fitness is important for everyone. There are too many reasons to list here. Fitness, exercise and active life styles for teens is extra important. Not only does it form mental habits and patterns in a critical period of their lives, it also forms physical patterns which also influence their future. Development of muscle mass and metabolic rates can also have long lasting qualities which become harder to change over time.

Fitness is important for teenagers not so much because of the immediate effects, but rather because of the future effects. The human body is probably it’s toughest during the teenage years so lack of exercise and or healthy eating will most likely not even show it’s ugly face until many years later.