Leisure Activities’ Effect on Pacific Children.

Leisure activities’ effect on Pacific children.

Leisure or free time is time spent away from business, school, work or domestic chores. Thus leisure activities are activities done in one’s free time. Leisure activities would include ball sports, board games, computer games, bird watching, origami and many activates which would be carried out tin ones free time. In the Pacific countries and focusing Fiji, leisure activities would vary according to the society one lives in. in the rural areas most leisure activities would include ball sports such as touch rugby and volley ball but moving to urban society the leisure activities focus more on computer and video games. Occasionally children play touch rugby and soccer. Using Fiji as the focus of this essay, it will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of leisure activities of Pacific children.
Firstly leisure activities play an important part in the health of a pacific island child. Children of the pacific on average weigh up to 60 kilograms when they reach the age of twelve, (The State of Pacific Children UNICEF/SPC, 1993). A way these children can overcome the weight gain is by playing ball sports. In Fiji it is seen that in rural village’s children who are twelve years of age weigh less than those living in urban areas, (The State of Pacific Children: 1993). This is the result of more time spent on games that involves running and jumping which is a form of exercise that keeps the children fit. Mantel health is also positively affected by leisure activities. These activities would include scrabble, crosswords and Sudoku. In Fiji children in urban areas have excess to such board games and this improves on their spelling, grammar or vocabulary and mathematics. Children who use their leisure time paling board games on average know more than 100,000 different words, (contra cost times: 2004).
In addition leisure activities help Pacific children socially. Children in the pacific especially in Fiji love to play...