Toys aren't usually viewed as vehicles to help children get healthy. Adults think toys are there to entertain and distract. Play is very different to children than it is to adults. It is the biggest tool children have to understand the world around them, and they use toys like tools to create safety, understanding, growth, and health for themselves. The best toys generate imagination, sensation, and physical activity.

Imagination

In a quest to push more knowledge into young children, toys have become increasingly electronic and complex. This takes a certain amount of imaginative play away from kids. Children can be taught by having information pushed on them, but when a toy requires a child to think, experiment, and create, the learning happens on its own and in a way that causes internal growth. Simple toys, old-fashioned toys, and wooden toys can all spur this kind of imaginative play.

Sensation

People are familiar with five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Within that fifth sense, lie other senses that affect the ways kids develop, grow, and move. Proprioception is a sense of where things are in relation to oneself. The vestibular sense helps determine balance. There are also tactile senses that deal with depth of pressure. If these senses are not stimulated well enough while children are young, it can cause problems in growth and development. Play can help develop these senses. Children naturally run, jump, spin, and crash to stimulate themselves. Choosing the right toys can help with this process. The Wheely Bug is a ride-on toy that moves in every direction. Play on a toy like the Wheely Bug helps develop balance, vestibular health, and gross motor skills.

Physical activity

Great toys encourage kids to move. Those "spin and crash" urges keep kids moving, and the right toys encourage and provide an outlet for those kinds of needs. Toys like the Wheely Bug keep kids moving, active, and physically healthy.

Health is about what happens inside and outside the body. Choose the right toys, and you'll help your kids have a life that is rich, healthy, and fun.