On the Home Team What Parents Can Do to Improve Teen Fitness and Health

One of the most important actions you can take to improve your child’s fitness and health is to support your school’s physical education program. Today’s physical education adds up to meaningful, beneficial, and safe experiences: Individualization + Age-appropriate activities + Skills and experiences = Lifelong fitness.

The New Physical Education = Quality Physical Education...

For example, depending on age and experience, your teen may learn to: Self-test health-related fitness components (e.g., cardiovascular endurance, flexibility).

Apply math skills to calculate heart rate. Use language skills to log physical activity. Keep a fitness log to encourage physical activity.

Shop wisely for personal fitness equipment and centers. Improve basic motor skills needed to participate in physical activities. Design a personal fitness program.

Learn to apply many academic skills. Today, through quality physical education, your teen can: Discover enjoyable physical activities for lifelong fitness.

Apply social skills through cooperative activities. Participate in positive competition.

Benefits of Quality Physical Education...

Physical activity improves sequencing abilities and access to memory. Physical activity improves ability to master new academic material. Source: Ratey 2001

Learning how to participate safely and effectively in physical activity through physical education also builds confidence and interest in physical activity.

Regular physical activity enhances feelings of well-being (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2000a). Fitness skills and information teach your son or daughter how to make and implement healthier lifestyle choices. Developing the habit of making healthier lifestyle choices means a healthier teen now—and a healthier adult in the future.

Feelings of confidence and joy in physical activity gained through quality physical education increase the likelihood your teen will become a physically active—and therefore healthier—adult.

Physically competent and active teens are less likely to be—or become—overweight or obese. Physically competent and active teens are less likely to develop heart disease or diabetes later in life. Source: USDHHS 2000b.

Physically active children smoke less (JAMA 1993).

“When physical inactivity is combined with poor diet, the impact on health is devastating, accounting for an estimated 300,000 deaths per year. Tobacco use is the only behavior that kills more people.” JAMA 1993, as reported in USDHHS 2000b.

Other Actions You Can Take...

Support Your School’s Physical Education Program...

Encourage your School Board to fund physical education fully.

Encourage your teen to try a variety of activities through both physical education and activities outside school. Discourage the use of physical education waivers.

Ask other parents and local businesses to get involved.

Help with fundraisers to buy new equipment and to obtain further teacher training.

Ask your physical education staff for more specific suggestions. Support Your School’s Physical Education Program

Choose Physical Activity Instead of Inactivity...

Encourage your teen to join out-of-school programs that encourage and facilitate physical activity and other healthy choices.

Provide transportation to local physical activity sites, such as skating rinks, swimming pools, and parks.

Do sit-ups, push-ups, or gentle stretches during TV commercial breaks. Make it fun!

Help your teen find a safe way to bike or walk to school and other events more often than he or she does now.

Most teens are sociable by nature, so, for example, welcome your teen’s friends to play basketball in the driveway, or, take a group to a vertical climbing gym or hiking site.

Bike as a family to a local restaurant, movie theater, or other attraction.

Choose Physical Activity Instead of Inactivity Be creative, and the choices will be endless!

Encourage Other Healthy Choices...

Talk to your teen about avoiding alcohol, other drugs, and tobacco. Teens do listen. Source: Joseph A. Califano, Jr., 2000, CASA President.

Provide healthy drinks: plenty of water, low-fat milk, and unsweetened juice. Encourage your school to do so too! Note: Overconsumption of softdrinks is partly blamed for the explosion in childhood obesity (The Lancet 2001).

What You Can Do You can help a your teen live a more physically active, healthier life by making a few simple changes such as these.

Start with one or two small changes. Then build from there to a healthier life—for the whole family!

Funding for this program was provided by PE4Life ( and Human Kinetics Publishers ( Content support was provided by The National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE)