Recreation Pertains To Activities Done For Leisure To Promote A Person's Well-Being and Growth. It Brings About A Sense of

Dimension of Development
Recreation, Physical Fitness, and Wellness
RECREATION
Recreation pertains to activities done for leisure to promote a person’s well-being and growth. It brings about a sense of
mastery, achievement, exhilaration, acceptance, satisfaction, success, personal worth, and pleasure. It enforces a positive self-image.
It is also a means to socialize, meet people, and gain new friends.
Characteristics of Recreation
1. Involves voluntary choice and participation of the individual
2. Includes physical activities that are well organized, date and time-flexible, suited to the individual’s needs, and controlled by
the individual in terms of location, time, clothing and equipment, and other conditions.
3. Focuses on the individual’s participation more that on the results.
4. Accessible and available to all regardless of socio-economic status, age, sex, and disability.
PHYSICAL FITNESS
Proper diet, sufficient rest, and regular exercise help keep the body healthy. Being physically fit enable a person to perform
tasks successfully with vigor and alertness and without feeling tired.
Physical fitness is a measure of the body’s ability to function efficiently and effectively, resists diseases, and confront
emergency situations. It is important not only to athletes but also to everyone. It does not simply mean exercising regularly. It refers
to a person’s overall strength, flexibility, endurance of the heart and muscles, and body composition. It includes nutrition and mental
health.
Here are some key concepts about physical fitness:
1. When exercising, the lungs take in additional oxygen which is fuel for the heart and brain.
2. Being fit enables the body to fight off illness and diseases.
3. Exercise helps reduce stress and tension. Strenuous exercise stimulates the body to release endorphins. These endorphins
produce a happy feeling in people.
4. Exercise strengths the bones, which makes doing the daily tasks easier. It help heal major injuries.
5. Exercise helps a person lose weight. When a person is in shape, he/she has increased muscle mass. Since muscle burns more
calories than fat, this means a person’s body uses up more calories and stores less of them as fat. Lower body fat is also
associated with a longer lifespan.
6. Exercise helps strengthen the heart, lungs, and immune system.
7. Regular exercise reduces the risks of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and some types of cancer.
8. Exercise keeps the mind sharp, even as it improves brain function.
9. Being fit does not mean possessing a muscular build
10. Regular exercise helps a person sleep faster, better, and longer.
Components of Physical Fitness

In its most general meaning, physical fitness is a state of good physical health. Physical fitness is to the human body what
fine-tuning is to an engine. It enables people to perform to their maximum potential and helps them look and feel good. It affects their
state of mind and influences, to some degree, their mental alertness and emotional state.
Physical fitness involves the following components:
1. Cardiovascular endurance – the ability of the body to deliver oxygen and nutrients to tissues and to remove wastes over
sustained periods of time
2. Muscular strength and endurance – the ability of the muscle to exert force for a brief period of time
3. Muscular endurance – the ability of a muscle or group of muscles to sustain repeated contractions or continue to apply
force against an inert object.
4. Flexibility – the ability of the body to more joints and use the muscles’ full range of motion
5. Body composition – the body in terms of lean mass (muscles, bones, vital, tissues, and organs) and fat mass. The optimal
ratio of fat lean mass is an indication of fitness.
Benefits of Regular Physical Activities

The health benefits of regular exercise or physical activities are hard to ignore. The following are some ways on how exercise
can help improve your life.
1. Exercise helps control weight. Exercise helps prevent excess weight gain and maintain weight loss. When you engage in
a physical activity, you burn calories. The more intense the activities, the more calories you burn.
2. Exercise helps prevent heart disease. No matter what current weight is, being physically active helps boost high-density
lipoprotein (HDL), or good cholesterol and decrease low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or bad cholesterol which can form plaque
that can narrow the arteries and eventually lead to heart attack or stroke.
3. Exercise helps improve mood. Regular exercise helps make you feel good; when you feel good, you feel confident and
happy.
4. Exercise helps boost energy. Regular physical activity helps improve muscle strength and endurance and the cardio-
respiratory system.
5. Exercise helps enhance learning. Exercise helps increase the level of brain chemicals that aid you in the learning.
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WELLNESS
According to the American Heritage Medical Dictionary, wellness is “the condition of good physical, mental, and emotional
health, especially when maintained by an appropriate diet, exercise, and other lifestyle modifications.” It is a dynamic state of health
in which an individual progresses toward a higher level of functioning, achieving an optimum balance between internal and external
environment.
Six Dimensions of Wellness
Wellness is a dynamic process of change and growth. Fahey et. Al (2001) give the following dimensions of wellness:
1. Physical wellness is develop through the combination of beneficial physical activity/ exercise and healthy eating habits and
lifestyle. It builds up muscular strength and endurance, cardiovascular strength and endurance and flexibility.
2. Emotional wellness is rooted in how you accept and manage your feelings, understand your limitations, navigate through
stressful situations, and maintain healthy relationships. This includes the degree to which you feel positive and enthusiastic
about yourself and your life. It is better to be aware of and accept your feelings than to deny them. It is better to be optimistic
than to be pessimistic in your approach to life.
3. Intellectual wellness emanates from one’s creative, stimulating, growth-oriented activities that lead to learning new skills
and sharing them with others. Intellectual wellness allows you to explore and expand the gifts ate uniquely yours, bringing a
richness to your life and the lives of those around you.
4. Spiritual wellness is rooted in the understanding that humans are spiritual beings. Spirituality is not the same as religion.
Some people can belong to a religion and not have a very well-developed spirituality. Spirituality pertains to the ultimate
meaning and purpose of life that each individual needs to find and thus define a value system to operate within.
5. Social wellness involves contributing to one’s environment and community. It emphasizes the interdependence between
others and nature and an awareness of your importance in society as well as you impact on multiple environments.
6. Environmental wellness encompasses how you care for the environment, create environments that are free from violence
and the threat of violence, and live in an environment that is safe for you physically and emotionally.
Behaviors that Contribute to Wellness

The lifestyle of an individual is a personal choice that influences the quality of life. A healthy lifestyle helps avoid disease and
hence keep you strong and fit. The most important behaviors and habits that contribute to a healthy lifestyle are the following.
1. Be physically active. The human body is designed to work best when it is active. When you care more for your body, bones,
heart, and lungs, the stronger and more fit they become.
2. Choose a healthy diet. A common person’s daily food intake is usually too high in calories, unhealthy fats, and added sugars,
and too low in fiber, complex carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables. A healthy diet promotes wellness and provides necessary
nutrients and sufficient energy.
3. Maintain a healthy body weight. Obesity is associated with a number of disabling and potentially fatal conditions and
diseases like heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. Diabetes is a chronic and debilitating disease that affects how the body
turns food to energy.
4. Manage stress effectively. Many people cope with stress by eating, drinking, or smoking too much. Others do not deal with
it at all. In the short-term, inappropriate stress management can lead to fatigue, sleep disturbance, and other unpleasant
symptoms. There are effective ways to handle stress and they should form an important part of a healthy lifestyle.
5. Prevent drug abuse through the following means:
a. Maintain good physical and mental health
b. Use drugs as directed by the physician. Most drugs are beneficial when used under medical advice or supervision.
c. Understand, accept, and respect your individual capacity or ability.
d. Develop your potential. Engage in wholesome, productive, and fulfilling activities
e. Learn to relate effectively to those who can communicate their problems freely.
f. Learn to cope with problems and other stresses without resorting to drug abuse.
g. Seek professional help of you feel that you cannot cope with the problems that you encounter.
h. Develop strong moral and spiritual foundation.
6. Protect yourself from disease and injury through lifestyle modification and management.
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Dimension of Development

Recreation, Physical Fitness, and Wellness

Components of Physical Fitness

Benefits of Regular Physical Activities

Behaviors that Contribute to Wellness

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