By Siddhi Jain

New Delhi, Jun 25 (IANSlife): The fear of an infection coupled with a countrywide closure of most institutions for kids, has children sheltering at home with little outdoor play or activity.

A team from the University at Buffalo studied overweight children from Italy throughout March and April when the country was forced to go into lockdown in a bid to stop the spread of coronavirus. They found that children ate an additional meal per day, slept an extra half hour per day, added nearly five hours per day in front of screens and dramatically increased their consumption of red meat, sugary drinks and junk foods.

With no clear timeline of when the schools will open, Indian parents are doing all they can to ensure their children stay fit. One of the steps that many parents have taken is to have a joint family workout session which includes the kids as well.

"The regular pre-lockdown routine was useful when it comes to fitness as my child would go out and play every day. The situation is different now, as schools have moved online, restricting every kid to their homes," says Rupali, a Pune-based mother of a 12-year-old kid, who has enrolled her child for daily workout sessions on HealthifyStudio.

HealthifyMe, a leading health and fitness app, saw parents getting their kids to join the online home workout sessions. This was common across batches with both fathers and mothers getting their younger ones to exercise along with them. Now the company has launched personalized sessions for the kids themselves owing to the massive demand they were witnessing for such a session from parents.

In a month since the launch, over 1000 kids have already worked out via HealthifyStudio, with bookings for kids constituting 5 percent of the total bookings. Also, the demand for the children's batch is rising rapidly with the number of sessions getting doubled from 45 to 90 in just 30 days, the brand told IANSlife.

Another parent, Priya Narayan from Pune said, "The prolonged lockdown has started taking a toll on the health of my child. My 7-year old who was very energetic is now just confined within the house with restricted movements and physical activities. As she was already overweight, it has now become even more important to indulge her in some form of physical activity. HealthifyMe's online home workout session is one way to ensure that she stays healthy without compromising fun."

"Over the past month, we have witnessed an increased interest from parents getting their kids to join the online home workout sessions. In one month of launch, over 1000 kids have already worked out via HealthifyStudio. The demand for the children's batch is rising rapidly. Most of the surge is coming from cities Bengaluru, New Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, and Vadodara. Kids are really enjoying workout sessions in routines like Dance Fitness and Aerobics on the platform," Tushar Vashisht, Co-founder ad CEO, HealthifyMe told IANSlife.