Being active means moving your body by using your muscles, bones, heart and lungs to get the blood pumping round your body. Check out our Get Moving page for lots of great (and some unusual) ideas for active fun.
Check out our great lunchbox recipes and put a Rainbow on your plate for fuel for your active body.
Finally, after all that healthy activity it is really important to find some time to rest and to get the right amount of sleep.
Crazy Active Facts
before shops and farms were invented our ancestors used to do around 10 hours activity EVERY DAY, just to find food. Nowadays even super fit athletes only work out around 2 to 3 hours a day
you have around 650 bone pulling muscles in your body
your red blood cells are made in your bones
your body makes around 2 million red blood cells EVERY SECOND!
there are 52 bones in your feet
Did you know?
You don’t have to do your one hour of exercise all at once - you can do it in handy 15 minute chunks!
Great ideas for being active
walking is the simplest and cheapest form of exercise
join in with games and sports in school breaktimes
take the stairs instead of the lazy lift
get off the bus a few stops early and walk that bit further
It is important to be active and strengthen your heart lungs and muscles. It is also important to sleep well and make time to rest and relax.
You need to relax your body and your brain and the best way of doing this is to do something you enjoy.
Here are some relaxing ideas:
sit quietly
read, draw or listen to music
go outside & sit in a park
go fishing by a river
walk through woods
do a hobby like knitting or model-making
do active jobs like looking after pets, gardening or cooking
The best time to relax is towards the end of the day so that you are ready to sleep later on. But any time when you can really relax and chill out is going to do you some good.
Worrying stops you relaxing!
Finally, you cannot rest properly if you are worrying about exams, or about problems at home or school. If you have lots of worries, try talking to a friend or an adult you can trust, like a school counsellor, Aunt or Grandad or a favourite teacher.
Rosie Swale-Pope ran around the world to raise money for charity. She arrived back in Wales on the 25 August 2008 after her marathon 5 year run, aged 62!
more than 1,800 People have climbed Mount Everest
Martin Strel from Slovenia swam the down the Amazon River, the world’s longest. It took him an amazing 66 days.
a 17-year-old British sailor, Mike Perham, sailed 28000 miles to become the youngest person to sail solo around the world
There are loads of sports you can take part in like football, tennis rugby or swimming.
Try something different
As well as playing sports you can try lots of other activities to get on hour of exercise a day:
buy a length of rope and try skipping
make an obstacle course in your garden and challenge your friends to run around, jump over or crawl under the obstacles
get your bike out and go for a ride
go to the park and play with a Frisbee
fly a kite
get a group of your friends together and play a game of rounders
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