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WEDNESDAY, Dec. 30 (HealthDay News) -- It sounds simple enough: Kids need to be active. When they are, they're less likely to be overweight and prone to the health risks that accompany extra pounds.
But how do you get kids moving? And not just moving, but doing the "right" type of physical activity? Therein lies the rub.
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Obesity is at epidemic proportions among America's youth. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of obese teens and adolescents has roughly tripled in the past three decades, going from 6.5 percent to 17 percent among preteens and 5 percent to 17.6 percent among teens.
Eating a healthy diet, of course, can help fight obesity in kids. But health experts agree that physical activity is crucial, too. Making sure kids develop the physical activity habit early -- and keep it -- can help ensure that they will keep a healthy body weight as well.
Turning the concept of regular physical activity into reality, though, doesn't mean simply signing them up for T-ball. It might mean you have to direct their exercise activities and disguise them as play.
"There is too much focus on doing sports and not enough focus on moving," said Dr. Teri McCambridge, a sports medicine pediatrician in Baltimore who chairs the Council on Sports Medicine and Fitness for the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Rule number one, in her mind, is to make fitness fun.
"Make it fun and don't make it seem like exercise," she said. "Ideas to get kids active would include riding their bikes, making an outdoor scavenger hunt where they have to run, skip, hop, crawl to find different things, making an obstacle course, playing leap frog, playing capture the flag, playing freeze tag."
Children and teens should fit in an hour or more of such physical activity a day, according to the CDC.
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