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:

• Find out about any conditions or allergies your child may have
• Learn about any medications or supplements they may be taking
• Monitor blood pressure, heart rate, and respiratory rate
• Visually check for any abnormalities or potential conditions
• Inspect your child’s eyes, ears, nose, and throat
• Test your motor functions and reflexes
• Palpate (physically exam through touch) parts of the body to check for potential issues
• If necessary, perform lab tests to test for possible conditions

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.