New National Ranking Reveals Austin, TX and Arkansas Best At Getting Kids Moving At School And Home

"With over 10 million kids playing GoNoodle each month across all 50 states and in the top 200 U.S. cities, coupled with GoNoodle's real-time capture of minutes of physical activity, we created the Kids Movement Index to help better understand how turning sedentary environments into active spaces positively impacts kids' minutes of movement," said Scott McQuigg, CEO and cofounder of GoNoodle."The index shows real progress in how teachers and parents are getting kids to incorporate minutes of movement into places not typically thought of as active spaces."

The Kids Movement Index includes rankings of all 50 states and the top 10 metropolitan areas in three size categories (large, medium and small markets). Little Rock, AR, Columbia, SC and Charleston, SC rank top in medium size cities, and Fayetteville, AR, Lexington, KY and Lincoln, NE rank top in small markets. View the rankings here.

"Physical activity and higher levels of aerobic fitness in children benefit brain structure, brain function, cognition, and school achievement. We can infer from our research that moderate and vigorous brain breaks may lead to gains in aerobic fitness and boosts in ‎brain health and school performance," says Dr. Laura Chaddock-Heyman, a research scientist at the Beckman Institute of the University of Illinois. "As physical activity opportunities in schools decrease, children are becoming increasingly sedentary and unfit, and may be missing opportunities to boost their brain power. This should inspire us to champion more daily physical activity opportunities!"

The CDC recommends that children get 60 minutes of physical activity a day, yet most children typically get less than 20 minutes. This is also reinforced by the recent White House "Presidential Proclamation -- National Physical Fitness and Sports Month, May 2016" and the 2016 US National Physical Activity Plan,with the latter calling for more movement opportunities for kids each day. The growing prevalence of technology and screen time has contributed to children leading increasingly sedentary lifestyles, and research proves movement is essential for the healthy development of kids.

Methodology
The Kids Movement Index is based upon the over 3 billion minutes of physical activity children earned on GoNoodle between August 3, 2015 through May 31, 2016. Minutes of movement are broken down by state and city (CBSAs) with the latter, segmented according to their respective sizes of their elementary student population: large (more than 100,000), mid-size (between 50,000 - 100,000) and small (between 25,000 - 50,000). The total minutes of kids movement is calculated as the amount of time GoNoodle is played in the classroom or at home. This will be an annual rankings report using a new method of measurement - minutes of physical activity.

View the rankings here http://about.gonoodle.com/2016kidsmovementindex/

About GoNoodle
GoNoodle (launched in 2013), gets kids moving to be their smartest, strongest, bravest, silliest, bestest selves. Short, interactive movement videos and games make it awesomely simple and fun to incorporate movement into every part of the day with dancing, stretching, running and even mindfulness activities. At school, teachers use GoNoodle to keep students energized, engaged, and active inside the classroom. At home, GoNoodle turns screen time into active time, so families can have fun and get moving together. Currently, more than 10 million kids and over 500,000 teachers worldwide use GoNoodle each month. GoNoodle is used in 75% of U.S. public elementary schools in all 50 states and in schools around the world in 175 countries (90% of countries on earth are GoNoodling!). Nearly 1.5 million families use GoNoodle at home either through the website or the recently released Apple TV app. Learn more at www.gonoodle.com

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SOURCE GoNoodle

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