The Down Madrid association emphasizes the importance of people with intellectual disabilities doing sports, and following a balanced and healthy diet during confinement to maintain good physical condition and avoid possible health problems in the future.
With more than a month of quarantine, a reduction in physical activity and an unbalanced diet, Down Madrid highlights and encourages people with intellectual disabilities to play sports two or three times a week, to prevent inactivity and ill eating habits leading to many health problems in the future.
Due to accessibility problems or due to the non-adaptation of classes to their needs, these people, sometimes, cannot practice sports. Likewise, people with Down syndrome tend to be overweight, or have other associated pathologies, such as hypotonia.
Led by volunteers, Down Madrid has launched a training session through the Teams application on Saturday mornings. Volunteers propose a series of exercises that have an impact on the body (planks, squats), and others for hip, knee and ankle joint mobility.
For Sonia Marzo, a volunteer for this program, this initiative implies on a personal level “a vital experience, every day that we train with these kids I learn from them, from their work capacity, sacrifice, their smiles. It is one of the most enriching moments of the week ”. “For me it represents the values that I try to transmit to my children in a society that is sometimes so superficial, it is a unique moment,” she adds.
