Creating a Lifelong Foundation
for Physical Activity

Physical activity provides infants, children, and adolescents with many physical and psychological health benefits. However, for a host of social, environmental, economic, cultural, familial, and health-related reasons, there exists a substantial and by most measures growing disparity between the amount of physical activity infants, children, and adolescents participate in and the amount that is beneficial to their health. Therefore, promoting physical activity is critical to the health of infants, children, and adolescents not only now but also in the future.

To meet the challenge of developing physical activity guidelines for infants, children, and adolescents, in June 1997 the Bright Futures team convened a multidisciplinary panel of health professionals, including educators, clinicians, exercise and behavioral scientists, public health officials, and representatives from family organizations. The panel focused on two key issues:

1. What do families need to do to promote the health and physical status of infants, children, and adolescents?

2. What do health professionals and communities need to do to become more effective in promoting the health and physical status of infants, children, and adolescents?

The goal was to develop physical activity guidelines for the infancy through adolescence developmental periods. Physical activity guidelines based on the best available scientific research, professional standards, and expert opinions were developed and sent for review to more than 100 individuals from a variety of health agencies and organizations.

Bright Futures in Practice: Physical Activity presents physical activity guidelines and tools emphasizing health promotion, disease prevention, and early recognition of physical activity issues and concerns of infants, children, and adolescents. It is designed for use by a wide array of health professionals, including physicians, nurses, dietitians, and health educators. The guide provides information health professionals can use to screen and assess the physical activity levels of infants, children, and adolescents and to provide anticipatory guidance on physical activity to families.

The guide can serve as a practical, educational resource for families and communities. Throughout the guide, we use the term "parent" to refer to the adult or adults responsible for the care of the infant, child, or adolescent. In some situations this person could be an aunt, uncle, grandparent, custodian, or legal guardian.

The guide helps answer the following questions:

• Why is physical activity important for infants, children, and adolescents?

• How do physical activity issues vary by developmental period?

• How do I provide anticipatory guidance about physical activity to children, adolescents, and their families?

• What questions are children, adolescents, and their families likely to raise frequently about physical activity?

• What resources can I use to help children and adolescents become more physically active?

Bright Futures in Practice: Physical Activity also highlights the way partnerships among health professionals, families, and communities can improve the health and physical status of infants, children, and adolescents. Health professionals, parents and other family members, teachers, coaches, and community leaders all have a role to play. They can work together to enhance opportunities for physical activity.

Bright Futures in Practice: Physical Activity builds on the physical activity guidelines presented in Bright Futures: Guidelines for Health Supervision of Infants, Children, and Adolescents. The guide is a practical tool for applying concepts and principles essential to physical activity supervision. It also supports the Healthy People 2010 objectives for the nation, and it can be used to develop and implement programs and policies for the health and well-being of infants, children, and adolescents. Bright Futures in Practice: Physical Activity represents a vision for the new millennium, a direction for integrating physical activity into health services in the 21st
century.

Together, health professionals, families, and communities can work to improve the health and physical status of our nation's infants, children, and adolescents and to build a foundation for lifelong physical activity behaviors--a foundation that encourages infants, children, and adolescents to enjoy physical activity.

Kevin Patrick, M.D., M.S.
Bonnie Spear, Ph.D., R.D.
Katrina Holt, M.P.H., M.S., R.D.
Denise Sofka, M.P.H., R.D.
Editors
Bright Futures in Practice: Physical Activity

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