Active play guidelines

The Ministry of Health recently released Sit Less, Move More, Sleep Well: Active play guidelines for under-fives.

Sitting less, moving more and sleeping well are important for healthy weight gain, mental health, behaviour, improved movement, competence skills, brain development, communication skills, and the ability to make good decisions.

It is vital for the development of physical movement skills that will provide a platform for learning more complicated skills in the future.

The guidelines suggest practical, low-cost activities that parents and whanau can do with their children under the age of 5 to support their development.

Over the next few weeks I’ll share some suggestions the Ministry of Health makes in these guidelines that will help parents understand what is important for children.

Often parents know what children need, but putting it into practice is harder, so the suggestions will give more incentive to parents to make necessary changes. Next week – we’ll start with ‘‘Sit Less’’.