How much exercise/physical activity do your dc get?

[Earlybird]

We grew up around lots of safe, wide open spaces so played/ran outside most every minute we possibly could. Seems with dd that I must 'take' her somewhere to be active - the park, football sessions, swimming, etc. Even if I take her somewhere every day, an hour or so of physical exertion is far less moving about than the spontaneous everyday extended level of physical activity we had as children.

We all hear the reports of how children are more sedentary, with potential health problems as obesity increases. How much exercise do your kids get, and how do you ensure they get enough to be strong/healthy?

We walk every where (no car anyway!) and they go to Aikido training twice a week which is quite good - they really are out of breath and sweating at the end of the hour. Although they go to school in Germany and I have lots of issues about the bad education, the one thing that is excellent is sport. They have real sport lesosns 3 times a week - learning techniques for warm up, long distance running and gymnastics. I think for city kids they move about enough but nothing beats being back in the Lake district and them having the run of the fells and fields, they never sit down all summer when we are there.

dd and ds walk to school (1 mile) every day and sometimes home again. They play outside our house in the afternoons if it's not raining. They swim once a week and do gymnastics. We go hillwalking every weekend and cycle a lot too.
Altogether they get about 2.5 hours physical excercise a day outside school.
They are age 7 and 5.

DD is 5 and in Y1 at school. She does ballet once a week at school, and PE once a week too. She also plays outside every breaktime and lunch time, running about with her friends.

Out of school she does Trampolnining on a Monday night.

Until the holidays she was doing swimming once a week. Lessons have now stopped but I hope to take her most Thursdays after school.

On a Wednesday she is about to start a fun sing and dnace class, called Pop Stars, so more activity then.

Other than that she is always dashing about, running, climbing and playing.

We lived in central London until a few months ago, and walked to/from school most mornings (about a mile each way). Now we are in a suburban setting and must drive to school, so the regular walking that was 'built in' to our schedule no longer happens.

DD gets a good deal of physical activity at school, but not so much 'unstructured' time. We simply don't live in a place (and these are no longer the times) where she could go for a bike ride without me there with her.

2 older dc swim at least every other day and dance for 6 hours on a sat.
ds is only 4 but he`s always on the go playing outside after school-wrap him up warm and off he goes.

I do a 20min run three times a week before school, DS comes with me on his bike.
Saturday do a 1 hr run, again with DS accompanying me on his bike.

We don't have a car, so walk everywhere, DS is outside every day cycling round the garden too.

Lots of hiking/walking and climbing weekends too.

DS is 4, so I'm hoping this is enough for now!