“Too much sitting is shown to be connected with health problems and bad study performance (表现) in students,” says Taija Juutinen Finni, a professor of health sciences.

▲ Jumping and playing with a ball can be fun ways to draw younger kids’ attention. You could also mix study and sports, helping both seem less boring. “In maths, students could do some exercises, and then they can jump to relax when they write down the last answer,” Dr. Juutinen Finni says.

Whenever possible, get outside. Not surprisingly, young people move more when they’re outdoors. In a 2019 study of almost 6, 500 children in 12 countries, they did more exercise when they went outside than they stayed indoors.

Young people should also aim (目标) to be strong, and some of them, especially teenagers, may be more pleased to do weight training than to go family dancing.

“If your kids don’t want to walk, run or ride bikes but like to lift a weight, you can let them do some push ups and jumps!” Dr. Juutinen Finni says. “Resistive work like these is safe for kids,” she adds. “And it can be done with little or no equipment (设备).”

Young people could also allow their friends or parents to join in for competition. “But it’s important for parents to remember that they shouldn’t try to be the PE teacher,” says AliMc Manus, a professor (教授) of health and exercise. “If we pay attention to how exercise should or must be done, it will be another thing to make many parents feel they are failing and kids feel low.”

Baduanjin wins hearts of young Chinese

No one expected that Baduanjin would become popular among young Chinese people.

In the past couple of years, an online teaching video of Baduanjin, a form of Qigong, has been played for more than 10 million times, “I have been doing Baduanjin for about four months. 【小题1】 I like Baduanjin very much because it gives me a much healthier lifestyle,” a young man said.

Baduanjin is one of the oldest health and fitness methods in China, originally created over 800 years ago during the Song Dynasty. Its name is made up of two parts, namely “baduan” and “jin”.

【小题2】 And the second part refers to the stretch and grace of the movements.

Compared to sports such as ball games or swimming, Baduanjin is slow and usually played with soft music. 【小题3】

【小题4】 It helped kill their neck and back pain after long working hours while not requiring much effort, time and space. Sun Yuxuan, a college student majoring in martial arts, has also noticed the rising popularity of Baduanjin. The 21-year-old girl has been teaching other students to practice for over three years. They started with 20 members in 2019 and the group has 45 members now. “Every member in the group is very active. I didn’t expect that it could attract so many young people. 【小题5】”. She said.

Weihai, a coastal(沿海的) city of Shandong province, has built a 1,001-kilometer route(路线). Tourists can see beautiful coastal views there. The route was put into service in May last year. The route goes along the coastline and runs across the mountains.

This summer, Zhang Guoliang and his family spent three days of their vacation in Weihai.

“We drove to the city to escape the heat, but what we experienced was much more than what we had expected.” Zhang said. The Zhangs went fishing, visited a tea farm, stayed in a lovely house and enjoyed watching the sky full of stars on clear nights.

Besides different interesting activities there, the highway is convenient for tourists. Over 70 percent of tourists drove to Weihai this summer and over half of tourists are from outside Shandong province.

A nearby village called Yandunjiao has a history of more than 400 years. It also benefited(受益于) from the convenient transportation. In the village, more than 50 families provide bed-and-breakfast services.

“Many tourists, especially students come here to learn the tea culture. They can also learn farming work at our base.” says Xu Bin, who is in charge of the tea project.

“We aim to build the base into a one of the most popular places around here in 10 years. If we can achieve this goal, our products will gain more markets, which will bring a higher income to local farmers.” says Xu.