Welcome to the
The Michiana Family YMCA strengthens the foundations of our community through well-being and fitness, camps, family time, swim, sports and play, and other activities for people of all ages, incomes and abilities. We’re more than just a place to work out. At the Y, we help build a healthy spirit, mind and body for all with the core values of caring, honesty, respect and responsibility at the heart of everything we do.
With a commitment to nurturing youth development, promoting healthy living, and fostering a sense of social responsibility, the Y ensures that every individual has access to the essentials needed to learn, grow and thrive.
HAPPY KIDS, HEALTHY KIDS
10 January 2012
Michiana Family YMCA Home School PE has resumed for the Spring Semester this week. Open to all students ages 4-15, we focus on the developing potential of kids with the values of caring, honesty, respect and responsibility as our guide. Kids have fun while realizing their potential.
Charles Hillman, a “gym rat” and neuroscientist at the University of Illinois, never believed the “dumb jock” stereotype. In fact, his students on the women’s cross-country team routinely set the curve on exams. So he set out to discover if fit bodies made healthier minds.
Hillman tested the fitness of kids in grades 3-5. Then he checked their physical abilities against their math and reading scores on standardized tests. As he suspected, the kids with the fittest bodies were the ones with the fittest brains, even when factors such as socioeconomic status were taken into account.
“Dumb jock” labels, Hillman concluded, are just wrong.
"People have been slow to grasp that exercise can really affect cognition," says Hillman, "just as it affects muscles."
Studies published in the 2012 January issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine found strong evidence of a significant positive relationship between physical activity and academic performance, as reported in yesterday's USA Today.
Some of the reasons for the benefit:
- Exercise increases in blood and oxygen flow, better nourishing brain cells;
- Exercise boosts the hormones responsible for curtailing stress and elevating mood; and,
- New nerve cells and synapse flexibility are developed.
In adolescence, neurodevelopment is rapidly increasing. Synapse flexibility is particularly important for kids’ mental health, according to Stephen M. Stahl, award-winning author and psychiatrist at the Neuroscience Education Institute.
Emily Shaffer-Hudkins, Ed.S. Early Interventionist/Evaluator University of South Florida College of Medicine, looked at both positive and negative indicators of mental health in relation to physical health by polling middle schoolers. Overall, those kids who said they were most satisfied, excited, strong and proud were also the most fit. Those who said they felt lonelier, guiltier, more anxious and depressed and displayed more undesirable behaviors reported being less physically fit.
Exercise is good for adults' mental sharpness, but it has a more long-lasting effect on your kid’s still developing brain.
Other opportunities for kid's to develop physical and mental fitness at the Y include:
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