Fit Kids Fitness for All The Family

                           Train up a child in the way be should go: and when be is old, be will not depart from it

                                                                            PROVERBS 22,6

We have all seen the cartoon highlighting our inactivity and telling us that most of us are couch potatoes. Well, take a look again – for increasing numbers of our children are also couch potatoes. And it’s official.

         A study of nearly 24,000 youngsters, whose ages ranged from 12 to 16, carried out by the schools Health Education Unit at Exeter University in England, found the following disturbing truth: nearly half the girls and one-third of the boys take less exercise than the equivalent of one- minute brisk walk a week.

     And a two-year fitness survey by education chiefs in peter-borough, Cambridge shire, involving 800 youngsters from seven junior schools, discovered that many children were so out of condition that they were unable to take part in playground games such as skipping, running and hop- scotch. One comment made was that: ‘Children have more facilities to play indoors. They don’t go out often as they should.’

     And a recent study in the USA by the Department of health and Human Service found that 40 per cent of children between the age of 5 and 8 were shown to exhibit at least one of the following heart disease risk factors: obesity, hypertension and high blood cholesterol, ad the reason give was inactivity and a sedentary lifestyle.

           Dr Kenneth Cooper, author of Aerobics, says that ‘kids are heavier and less fit aerobically now then 15 years ago’ and this is due to ‘sedentary living and poor nutrition’.

  In the UK and the USA, with up to 90 per cent of health. It seems that children are following in their parents’ footsteps. With the increasing use to the motor car to ferry children around; with some children watching up to 25 hours of television each week; and with video and computer games taking the place of sorts and fitness activities, is it any wonder that increasing numbers of children are overweight and unfit?

    Many people, of course, are hoping that schools will keep children active, but unfortunately school physical education programmes are failing to do the job. Tight school budgets and lack of playing fields and sports facilities all contribute to the problem, and even where schools have good sports facile-ties, there is often a focus on competitive on competitive team games rather than individual activities which promote long-term health and fitness.

    Emphasis on skills needed to play soccer, rugby, netball and cricket takes precedence over cardiovascular endurance, suppleness, strength, flexibility and body weight maintenance – the requirements for a fit and healthy body. We teach children the 3 Rs and how to compete, but we don’t teach team the sample skill of regular fitness walking: the easiest and cheapest way for children of all ages to get fit and keep fit for life.

   With increasing evidence that physical inactivity in children increases the risk of heart disease, and with schools increasingly unable to provide suitable activities which foster long- term fitness and health, the force behind motivating children, must come from parents.

     In 1987, The National Child Youth Fitness Study in the USA revealed that sedentary parents tend to have sedentary children and active parents tend to have active children. And a recent University of Pittsburgh study found that overweight children have greater long-term success controlling their weight if they are involved in a family-based exercise and diet programme. So the moral is that your children are more likely to keep fit and watch weight if you do. And it’s never too late for them to start.

    Dr Neil Armstrong in charge of Exeter University’s Physical Education Research Center said: You are never going to persuade all children to do aerobic, but 80 per cent can do more walking.’ And Arnold Schwarzenegger, the film star, who is chairman of the President’s Council on Physical fitness and Sports in the USA, offers the following advice: Parents must make fitness a family affair. How can Mom and Dad help? They can participate in exercise activities with their children. They can turn off the TV encourage all family members to get out into the yard or on the street for a brisk walk.’