Benefits of play – Physical

A family café like Eden soft play prioritises maximising the benefits their play space gives as children play on it. So we’re in the middle of discussing the emotional, social, physical and mental benefits of play. We discussed the social benefits last time, and this time I’m talking about a more obvious one, the physical benefits of play.

In 2011, Nottingham City Council published the Healthy Weight Strategy 2011-202, which stated that “Nottingham’s children have significantly higher levels of obesity compared to the England average at age 4 to 5 years”.

There are a number of factors, but they can be reduced to two areas: unhealthy eating habits and insufficient exercise. Exercise is vital for tackling obesity, but also for other benefits, an article on kidshealth.org tells us children who exercise:

• have greater muscle strength and higher bone density (harder to break);
• have more healthy levels of body fat;
• have much lower chances of developing type 2 diabetes;
• have lower blood pressure;
• have a better outlook on life;
• sleep better;
• face emotional and mental challenges with greater success.

Play like the stuff children experience at Eden Softplay is great exercise! Running around, playing games, chasing each other is an easy way to get the blood flowing, and it’s fun so children only stop when they really need to!

So how is Eden’s play centre helping? Eden’s café provides healthy options for children, with all of our meals including at least one 5-a-day portion. Eden’s play area is also designed to be very tall for its size, and has a large number of climbing possibilities; this encourages full-body exercise. Adults that go into our play space with their little ones are always telling us how tiring our soft play area is! On top of that we offer unlimited play! We believe that if families come to Eden once a week, and eat our vegetable chilli with jacket potato and peas (only £2 at happy hour 4-5pm!), then that’s a step in the healthy direction!