WHO INFORMATION SERIES ON SCHOOL HEALTH ... - PAHO/WHO

7. CONCLUDING REMARKS
Promoting Physical Activity in Schools
This document aims to make two powerful cases. First it defines the importance of physical activity for
today’s children and adolescents – developing flexibility, endurance, strength and coordination as well as
motor skills –, and second, it illustrates how schools, together with families and communities, can assist
students to be active in these ways and to develop skills and interests that will enable them to be physically
active throughout their lives.
Physical activity is a fundamental building block of children’s present and future health and the school is an
indispensable forum to initiate and maintain physically active living among children. WHO has compiled this
document to provide basic recommendations for schools to be dynamic settings for creating an environment
for young people to adopt and maintain physically active lifestyles.
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