Obesity and Motor Skills

There are 3 areas of Physical development. |Gross Motor Skills |The use of large muscles in the body and can include things like walking or riding a | | |bike. | |Fine Motor Skills |The use of smaller muscles in the body and including using building blocks or juggling,| | |also activities that involve hand-eye coordination. | |Fine Manipulative skills |The use of the arm, hand and wrists muscles and include activities like using a pen. | Both fine motor skills and fine manipulative skills are also the use of hands and fingers. This form of development also has a holistic element as it links into the other areas of development; Social, Emotional, Intellectual/Cognitive, Communication/Language and Creative. When looking at physical development it clearly shows that a child’s development begins at the head, then it continues down the body. To aid with physical development, children need to be physically active. This can help prevent the harmful effects on health and wellbeing in both the long and short term. In the short term, physical activity can boost energy and help children to get rid of any excess stress or anxiety. It also shows that children are more physically active, have better eating and sleeping habits. They are also less likely to get illnesses like cold and flu bugs. In the long term, physical activity helps with the issue of obesity in children. This can also help with preventing other health problems like heart disease and stage 2 diabetes. It has also been shown to reduce the risk of some forms of cancer. Physically active children also have improved psychological wellbeing. They can gain self confidence and higher self esteem. It is important for children to have lots of space and access to outdoor activities as this can benefit all areas of development. Children follow a sequence of development. Gross and fine motor skills are the starting points and lead into other areas. Locomotion uses the large movements and the ability to move around under ones â€Å"own steam†. This begins with a baby learning to first crawl or bum shuffle, and then develop the ability to walk. There is also balance which is the fist of the senses to develop. This is crucial to a child’s posture, movement and proprioception. Proprioception is the sense that starts to inform a baby of the areas of the body that are mobile. An example of this is when a young child rolls backwards and forwards on the floor with no goal insight, they are getting balance ready for sitting, standing and walking. As physical development is linked to the other areas of development, each affect and are affected by the others. Emotional Development; if and when a baby masters the ability to crawl, they are then free to explore their environment alone. This makes the child more independent and confident and more likely to cope with separation from familiar adults. Cognitive Development; hand-eye coordination help with the ability to reach and grasp at objects, this develops at around 6 months of age and often results in a surprised reaction at first. As babies are interested in edges they soon learn where one object ends and another begins, this area of development is important. Language Development; movement activities help children by giving them plenty of opportunities to talk and use new vocabulary that is related to the activity. Social Development; learning social skills are achieved when playing with other children. They also learn to appreciate others and help them gain confidence.