Movement and the African child: A practice going astray

Abstract

Movement is life and the power for growth and development for healthy lifestyle.  Poor motion or inactivity is the basis for poor development in children and morbidity and mortality in adulthood. As children grow, it is expected that certain developmental dimensions such as physical, socio-emotional and cognitive will develop. These dimensions form a very important aspect of the human life and need to be nurtured to develop appropriately. One of the means through which these dimensions could be nurtured is through body movement involving locomotive and non-locomotive motions.  For proper development children need to be taken through conscious steps that will help their all-round development which primarily has been part of African communal settings for cultural integration and development.  Era of technology has brought several challenges facing the active lifestyle of African Children thereby predisposing them to sedentary living and its disease risks. Some of these include mass movement from rural setting to urban settlements, use of technology and also social media, fear of the environment and security issues amongst others. There is the need to appraise the cultural effect of technology on active lifestyle of African children and reactivate a balance between technology and re-integration of cultural mediums of training and development in children’s education. To promote adequate physical movement among children, curriculum should integrate healthy cultural/physical activities in the school, and parent should encourage their children to do domestic activities and reduce the use of electronic gadgets such as electronic games, TV and labour saving devices.