Commentary on 'The acquisition of exercises in adolescents with severe intellectual disabilities' (Page & Canella-Malone, 2019)

摘要

Exercise and physical activity are essential to health for everyone, but they are particularly important for the physical, social, and emotional development of children and adolescents. The terms exercise and physical activity are often used interchangeably, but they do not mean the same things. Physical activity is any body movement produced by muscles resulting in energy expenditure (Caspersen, Powell, & Christenson, 1985). Exercise is a subset of physical activity; it is planned, structured, and repetitive movement done with the intent of maintaining or improving physical fitness (Caspersen et al, 1985). Physical fitness is a set of health-related attributes (e.g., cardiovascular endurance, muscle strength and endurance, body composition, flexibility) or skill-related attributes (e.g., balance, coordination, agility, reaction time, speed, and power) (Caspersen et al., 1985). It is recommended children and adolescents participate in at least 60 minutes of physical activity daily at moderate intensity (movement that makes you sweat lightly, such as a brisk walk) (World Health Organization, 2010). Increasing numbers of children and adolescents do not do enough physical activity. This is particularly so for children and adolescents with disabilities. Studies show adolescents with autism spectrum disorder spent less time per day doing moderate-intensity physical activity than their typically developing peers (Stanish et al., 2017) and that children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities are less likely to meet physical activity guidelines than their typically developing peers (Einarsson et al., 2015).