Preschoolers Switch From Playpen to Exercise Mat

If the groups in the aerobics studio look young, it could be because they are. Exercise leaders are trying to reach children who took their first steps a few years ago.

Those are the children Karen B. Wells specializes in. The Atlanta-based fitness professional works with preschoolers. What she teaches them, she says, is pre-exercise.

“You don’t want to call it aerobics--but if you think of kids, they like to move,” Wells said.

Wells and others, from class leaders in health clubs to child-centered corporations like Gymboree, are developing a market in active preschoolers.

The alternative is to let small children pick up the sedentary habits that leave even older ones too fat, too weak and too prone to develop ailments from heart disease to osteoporosis as adults, the fitness advocates say. These kids must be taken to classes because they’d otherwise spend time watching TV, the experts say.

“Exercise should become a habitual part of a child’s life at a very young age,” said Avery Faigenbaum, a professor of exercise physiology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

Faigenbaum runs a research lab and children’s exercise program at the South Shore YMCA in Quincy, Mass. And, although children are naturally active, they live with rushed parents in a comfort-driven world that leaves them little opportunity to try physical activity, he said. “Where are kids going to be active?” he asked.

Parental worries have a part in the trend.

“They don’t let the kids go out and play,” said Julie McNeney, vice president for marketing at the Fitness Group, a health club in Vancouver, B.C. “Parents want to take their children into an environment where it’s safe.”

The result is a growth market for children’s movement classes, said McNeney, who chairs an exercise program committee for IDEA, a professional organization for group exercise leaders.

What these children need is not very complicated but provides the basis for any future athletics, Wells said. It’s stuff like jumping, skipping, running and hopping--but at this young age, there’s no guarantee children can do it, she said.

For instance, moving side to side is invaluable in sports like basketball and tennis. “Kids don’t move sideways until they are 5 to 6,” Wells said. “Just to get them to move sideways is a huge accomplishment.”

But, although the programs can be precursors to exercise, they can’t be branded as exercise, Wells said. For one thing, parents like to think their children get exercise already, and for another, children in this age range can’t sustain anything long enough to get an exercise benefit, she said. So the programs have to be whatever a kid considers fun--too easy, and the kid gets bored; too hard, and the kid gets frustrated.

“What is fun? That’s the hardest question of all,” Faigenbaum said.

Exactly how much activity is needed has not been determined, Faigenbaum wrote in the Health and Fitness Journal of the American College of Sports Medicine. However, one model for the minimum a child should do is a scaled-down version of current federal recommendations for adults.

The adult recommendations call for at least 30 minutes of moderate activity a day, broken into no more than three 10-minute segments, on most days. Children should engage in active play three times a day or more, for a total of at least 30 minutes a day, Faigenbaum’s article said,but the optimal exercise program is more active than this, Faigenbaum said.

Parents who are looking for a class for their children should watch the classes and ask other parents for recommendations, Wells said.

Can parents tell whether the class is doing the job? The parent has to watch the child’s reaction. If the child comes home happy, the program is working. If the child hates going, it’s not, Wells said.