0- 5 years
Engage parents/ carergivers and babies together in exercise as a bonding activity to promote attachment and mirror neuron development
Provides engaging education activities as a Stress Buffer
5- 12 years
Improved self esteem
Increase in feel good natural chemicals
(serotonin, endorphons)
Improved frontal lobe functioning and memory
Increased opportunity to connect with other children and engage in team work
Adults
Sense of control over one component of lives therefore
Decrease feeling of overwhelm and enables participants to be distracted from the negative feelings periodically
Reduce isolation
Improve executive planning and memory
Post Natal Depression
Bonding/ attachment with baby through exercise
Opportunity to witness baby brain development and baby learning from parent
Australia’s National Mental Health Plan (2003 – 2008) outlines the need for cross-sectoral linkages between all areas of health and allied health professionals in order to increase the capacity to deal with mental health issues later in life
and the physiological and chronic health conditions often related to mental health issues.
Latest statistics for both the area of mental health and physical health of children indicated that 14% of young people aged 4-17 years were reported to have a mental health problem (Sawyer et al. 2000) whilst obesity statistics in 2006 indicated that 26% of boys and 24% of girls in NSW aged approximately 5-16 years were overweight or obese (COO 2006).
With both mental health and obesity problems having significantly detrimental effects on health later in life, shouldn’t early intervention programs be equally balanced to include prevention strategies for both areas.