Building Gross Motor Skills to Decrease Risk of Childhood Obesity

By Barbara Lyons, OT

A growing number of studies have demonstrated that young children with poor gross motor skills tend to be less active. This relationship between gross motor skills and physical activity is critical particularly in an era where obesity in children is at epidemic proportions.

Obesity in childhood can lead to serious health problems in adulthood including diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Good nutrition is one weapon in the battle against childhood obesity. The other weapon is physical activity.

Physical activity designed to strengthen gross motor skills should begin in infancy when key connections are made between the brain and muscles and voluntary movements begin. Early activity serves as the basis for skillful movement for activities, such as sports, dance and exercise later in childhood and adulthood.

Infants must first develop head, neck and trunk stability before moving on to use hands and feet with skill. To exercise and develop muscles and coordination infants need to spend time on the floor. This allows them to develop core strength and movement patterns. The time a baby spends creeping is valuable to build the postural (back and neck) muscles. Using the arms to crawl helps develop the musculature of the shoulder girdle.

Some activities that can help strengthen postural muscles include:

• Placing infants on their tummies and encouraging them to lift their head up and raise their arm to grab a toy.

• Allowing babies playtime on a clean floor mat allows them to explore movement and thus to develop their postural muscles.

Toddlers and preschoolers need trunk stability to support the use of arms and legs for active play. Activities that strengthen their trunk stability include:

• Using foam scooter, tummy scooters and peanut balls, which can strengthen the upper and lower extremities and improve balance, posture and coordination.

• Crawling in tunnels or using a hopper ball requires trunk stability as well as leg strength.

• Pushing a large ball back and forth while maintaining a high knee posture also puts demands on trunk stability.

It's important to make the activities fun so that children enjoy themselves and feel confident rather than feeling discouraged by their perceived lack of skill.

In this era of convenience, video games and television, young children today are spending less time working on their gross motor skills. To help children become more active and to help reduce their risk of obesity means engaging them on fun activities that also improves their gross motor. And any gross motor activity that burns calories and improve general health also reduce children's risk of obesity in the long term.

Barbara Lyons, OT, PhD, is an occupational therapist who has taught at the University of Illinois' OT Program and has evaluated and treated children in both the school and clinical settings. She has studied with Jean Ayers, who was known for her efforts in increasing awareness about sensory processing disorder.

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