Does Your Child Need a Physical Before the New School Year?

Does Your Child Need a Physical Before the New School Year?

Children are getting less exercise, and it’s starting earlier than you think. A recent study reveals that children engage in less physical activity as early as age 8, with a larger decrease in exercise around age 11. In addition to building strong bones and muscles, physical exercise is important for children and adolescents to reduce risk of obesity, diabetes, and many cardiovascular conditions like heart disease and high blood pressure. This makes it all the more important to encourage more activity at home and school. Just before the new school year starts, a physical exam can help with your child’s health in a variety of ways.

If you live in the Little River, South Carolina area and you need to get your child a physical before school starts, Dr. Rogers Walker and Walker Urgent & Family Care can help. We offer in-house equipment for lab testing, X-rays and other materials for exams in addition to a wide variety of services for the whole family.

What’s involved in a physical?

Physicals are a really good way to assess your child's general health through gathering information about any history of health issues, checking your vital signs, performing a visual and physical check, and getting samples for lab work. To do this, we will:

What can it help identify?

Everything we gather from your child’s physical will help us identify potential conditions, like high cholesterol, high blood pressure, obesity, stroke, diabetes, and heart disease. This is also a good time to make sure your vaccinations are up-to-date. 

Getting this done annually helps to monitor changes and prevent potential conditions from becoming a problem. And identifying conditions can make it easier to encourage children to be more active and stay healthier as they get older.

Why is it important before the school year starts?

Knowing what conditions or health changes your child may be dealing with will make managing them easier for both of you and allow you to be better prepared for their school year. If there are health concerns, changes in physical exercise, diet, and medications can help throughout your child’s time in school to prevent conditions from getting worse

If your child is interested in sports and other outdoor activities, knowing what shape they are in is important before committing to anything that may create more stress than they can handle.

A physical exam before classes start is a great way to both get ahead of any conditions and make sure your child is ready for whatever activities in which they want to get involved. If you want your child to get an exam before school starts, make an appointment with Dr. Walker and Walker Urgent & Family Care today.

You Might Also Enjoy...

5 Important Benefits of Routine Blood Work

Lab tests are commonplace with things like physical exams and job screenings, but blood tests are an important facet of screenings that are done for many other reasons as well. Read on to find out more about their benefits.

How to Prepare Diabetes-Friendly Meals

Diabetes is a chronic illness that if left untreated wreaks havoc on systems throughout your body. If you have diabetes, you’ll need to make dietary changes to help balance sugar and insulin in your body. Read on to find out more.

5 Ways to Treat a Cut or Laceration

We all get an occasional cut or scrape, but how bad does it have to be to need treatment? What are the best methods for treating them if they happen? Read on to learn more about wound care.

Is Winter Too Late for a Flu Shot?

People have started getting the flu shots this year, but millions of people still haven’t gotten around to it. If you haven’t gotten around to getting the vaccine yet, when is too late for the shot? Read on to find out.

Understanding Your Glucose Test Results

Blood sugar, or blood glucose, is a necessary fuel for the body, but too much of it in your bloodstream can be dangerous, so glucose tests are vital for your health. Read on to find out what the results of this test mean for your health.