The important reason we need to stop telling our kids to "sit still".

“Stop fidgeting.” “Sit still.” “Don’t run in the hallway.” “Don’t jump on the couch.”

Parents have been saying these kinds of things to kids forever – or at least as long as hallways and couches have been around. It’s accepted that a child who will stay quietly by your side when you’re out, behave calmly inside the house and walk obediently around the school is a “good” child.

How often will a stranger compliment you on your child who is running up and down the aisle of the train, standing on their head in the library or climbing a tree in the churchyard?

But with a quarter of Australian children either overweight or obese, is it time to rethink how we talk to kids – and about kids? Should we perhaps be encouraging running around and boisterous behaviour generally?

That’s what childhood fitness experts are saying. A new report by a parliamentary group in the UK says telling children to “sit still” sets them up for a lifetime of obesity.

“Identification of a ‘good’ child as one who sits still – as opposed to a happily mobile child – needs to be resisted and challenged,” the report says.

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Dr Natasha Schranz, co-chair of Active Healthy Kids Australia, thinks we should all change our perceptions.

“I’m a parent of two young girls, and my girls definitely don’t like to sit still for long periods of time,” she says. “Everyone just needs to ease up a little bit and let kids move as they want to.”

Dr Schranz says there are times when kids are out socially that they do need to stay sitting, for safety reasons or to be respectful. But she thinks that when kids are being boisterous at home, parents could join in, rather than telling them off.

“If they want to have a wrestling match, join in with them, have a bit of fun with them, roll around, have a pillow fight… maybe not jump on the couch, because you’re a bit heavier than what your child is.

“I think it’s important for us as role models that we enjoy activity. It’s about having fun and doing what your body wants to do.”

At school, Dr Schranz would like to see more activity breaks in between lessons and also more lessons that involve kids getting up and walking around, such as doing measurements in the schoolyard for maths.

“Kids aren’t built to just sit still and listen,” she says.

Although she knows that schools are under pressure due to risk assessments, she thinks there shouldn’t be restrictions like “no running on the asphalt”.

“I think rather than siding with caution, be a bit more open to letting kids express and move the way they want to. They might skin their knee but they’ll get up again and keep going.”

She believes we need to ditch the idea that quiet kids are “good” kids.

“I think that it’s really important that we don’t stereotype that the ‘sitting still’ is the good one and the ‘moving around playing’ is the naughty one necessarily, that we take that language away from those scenarios and just enjoy the differences of children.”