Promoting Active Lifestyles in Schools
Jo Harris e Lorraine Cale
2018, 128 pages
Promoting physical activity and consequently an active lifestyle has become in recent years an increasingly important topic to talk about, whereas instead we seem to be driven to lead an increasingly sedentary life. It then becomes essential to talk about movement when it is related to children and in a broader sense with young people: we know too well which and the negative results of the lack of physical activity, from the likely increase in weight to limitations in self-knowledge and to interactions with other peers.
I’m happy when books dedicated to this theme are published. At this regard, the book by Jo Harris and Lorraine Cale, entitled Promoting Active Lifestyles in Schools, is a stimulus for everyone, not only for teachers of physical education but also for parents and school managers or sports organizations, to ask what and how we can do more and better to promote a mentality in young people aimed at finding movement as a form of well-being, fun, play, collaboration but also challenge with themselves and their own peers.
It is a very well-articulated book. In the first part are presented topics about how to promote an active lifestyle in UK schools with activities promoting health, movement and fitness in the age group of infancy and adolescence. Particular attention is paid to the role of the school in promoting this approach to the movement and the contribution that physical education provides to the promotion of personal well-being is also outlined.
The other two parts of the book underline the monitoring modalities that should be carried out by the school relating to the three areas of health, physical activity and physical fitness. Furthermore, the third part highlights the learning of young people in the area of health enhancing an active lifestyle. The learning of the young is strictly related to their age. The group age start from the age of 5-7 years going ahead with periods of two/three years up to 15-16 years.
The book is aimed at school teachers but it is certainly a useful reading for all those interested in promoting a physically active lifestyle among young people.
