Fitness Reigns Supreme on Todays Playgrounds

Playgrounds today have an even more important role than ever before in the lives of kids. Childhood obesity is reaching an alarming level. We understand that kids need to be more active the challenge is disguising ways to make them more active as fun. That's where the modern play structures come into the picture.

In the playgrounds of yesterday, the goal was just to give children a place where they could run around and let off a little steam before settling in for the night. Today however, they are taking on different roles and have a greater impact on children than temporary amusement. Parks across the country are upgrading play systems and playground equipment with new goals in mind.

They aren't getting rid of traditional and much love equipment such as slides, swings, and merry-go-rounds. They are making slides more challenging to get to. They are adding new touches like rock climbing walls, ring bars, and tire trails to bring a new fitness component into the playground.

More importantly, the kids are having fun. They don't even realize that they're getting a major workout, burning calories, and developing balance and strength from their hours of play.

Water playgrounds are becoming widely popular these days with good reason. Even when the sun is bearing down during those oh so brutal dog days of summer kids can get out, splash around, burn calories, and have a lot of fun in the sun without ever really feeling the heat.

Getting kids to the playground today is about so much more than getting them away from television and video games. While that's not a bad goal to have in mind, the health of an entire generation is much more important in the long-term.

It may not seem like playground time is accomplishing all that much in the beginning but the more time kids spend on equipment like this, the less time these children are spending eating mindless snacks, sitting idly in front of their gaming consoles, or getting into trouble elsewhere. The bottom line is that the more we, as a society, can get kids up and moving around, the better able we'll be to tackle the trend of childhood obesity.

Playground equipment is one small step in the right directions that communities, schools, and even churches can make. Simple changes like monkey bars and climbing walls can help kids develop upper body strength and better coordination. Climbing steps to get to the top of the slide exercises the legs, burns calories, and helps develop muscles in the legs.

As little as forty minutes of exercise every day can result in significant loss of body fat in seven to eleven year old children without any changes in the diet at all according to Dr. Joe Frost in The Developmental Benefits of Playgrounds. With that in mind, investing in playgrounds really is an investment in the community at large by creating a generation of healthier children who are no longer plagued by childhood obesity – at least that is the goal.