Being physically active, be it through going on regular walks to participating in the art of tai chi or even jiu jitsu, is a hugely important part of any healthy lifestyle for children and adults alike. After all, leading a healthy life is more complex than simply avoiding junk food and being thing. Of course, your diet plays an important and key role in your overall health and it is certainly important to follow one that is healthful and supportive of your leading an active lifestyle, but it must also be said that your diet is only one part of a healthy lifestyle and should, whenever it is at all possible, be supplemented by regular exercise and physical activity.
Unfortunately, too few people (children and adults alike) are currently getting the exercise that they are in need of here in the United States. In fact, even though it is recommended by the American Heart Association that everyone – including children who are over the age of two – engage in at least one hour of moderate physical activity, if not even more than that (depending on the lifestyle of the child or the adult – or both), this is simply not always the case. Unfortunately, it has currently been estimated that only about one third of all children in this age bracket are getting the right amount of exercise. For adults, the problem only worsens. It has even been estimated that five percent or even less of all adults are actually able to get the minimum recommended amount of a mere thirty minutes of exercise or physical activity each and every day. And some of this can simply be attributed to the fact that our lifestyles are simply no longer as conducive to regular exercise. For instance, more than half of all parents (just about two thirds of them, to be even more exact) fear instead that their children are spending far too much time on electronic devices including phones and tablets. TV time is another concern for parents who are raising young children in today’s day and age. Altogether, it is estimated that the typical child who is growing up in the United States of America will be engaged with some type of screen for at least seven hours out of the day, an astronomical jump when we compare it to the years in the past. This dependence on technology has also become problematic for many adults, and can lead to a lack of physical activity (or the drive for it) for many people of all different ages in all different parts of this country of the United States.
Fortunately, sports such as tai chi and brazilian jiu jitsu are helping to change this pattern of poor levels of physical activity, and are growing more popular with each and every year. Tai chi, for example, now has as many as more than three and a half million people participating in it on a yearly basis – and the numbers of tai chi participation are only likely to continue to grow in the years that are to come. Kickboxing is another popular sport in the same vein as tai chi, muay thai, and brazilian jiu jitsu, and has garnered as many as six point nine million participants at the time that the data was first collected. And not only do these activities burn calories and prevent problems such as obesity (and all of the problems that are associated with it) from ever developing in the first place, they can also improve your overall bodily healthy – not to mention your self confidence. Tai chi alone, for example, has a marked effect on your balance, and the majority of all tai chi participants here in the United States (fifty four percent of them, to be exact) said that participating in tai chi on a regular basis led them to see a noticeable change in their balancing activities. Sports like tai chi are also typically able to improve flexibility, which has been found to help to reduce the chance and likelihood of a serious injury occurring later in life.