On June 9th, 1989, the world was graced with a beautiful baby boy. In a time before the internet blogs, (maybe you've seen mine?) cell phones, and 500 cable television channels, this charming boy would grow up playing street hockey with other neighborhood boys, running and jumping on the playground equipment, and exploring the great outdoors that was Nancy Rd in Waterloo, IA. Fighting childhood asthma and crippling allergies, this boy never spent a moment indoors if he didn’t have to. Mostly because my parents would lock the door and only let me back inside to eat or drink. Did I mention that boy was me? Must have slipped my mind.
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| Ask me if I still wear this outfit. The answer is yes. |
I grew up in a time where children didn’t stare idly at an iPad for hours on end. Before your number of twitter followers determined how cool you were. A time where you spent your leisure time running, jumping, and playing with the neighbors. Times have changed with dire consequences. Today children are less active than they have ever been. This sedentary lifestyle in children is creating an epidemic that is slowly killing our nation.
As I began researching youth health and fitness I had a general idea of what I was getting into. I was getting into a population of youth today that are overweight, sedentary, and according to many recent studies not going to outlive their parents. Wait, what? How could scientists believe that with medical advances our generation wouldn’t have longer lifespans than our parents? This is where I realized I had opened Pandora’s box on a topic that we are only beginning to truly understand.
I knew the numbers weren’t going to be pretty. I have done previous research on the current state of our nation’s health. 70% of our nation is overweight, 1 in 3 adults are obese, Type II diabetes is one of the fastest growing diseases; everything sucks, ad nauseam. As I began to research specifically how this epidemic is affecting our youth I was shocked by what I found.
Children today are not as active as they used to be. A study conducted in 2011 showed that only 29% of high school students had participated in 60 minutes of physical activity over a 7 day period. 14% of those surveys had not participate in 60 minutes of physical activity on any day over a 7 day period. Most experts believe this is due to playing video games, watching television, and surfing the internet.
Before we start a “the ‘gun’ killed the child’s health, not the child’s decision,” argument, let’s look at the bigger issue. Stupidity. Despite all of the information that is out there on health and fitness, the general population still is not educated properly on the benefits of physical activity. To me, this lack of information starts in our school systems.
Physical education today is not given the level of importance it deserves. Programs in all levels of schooling are being cut back; that is if they even exist in the first place. Only 52% of high school students attended physical education classes on a weekly basis in 2011.
Reading this research took me back to my middle school PE class at Sacred Heart Parochial School. Twice a week we changed into our gym class uniforms, did some jumping jacks, and all the stronger kids who hit puberty way before me physically belittled the rest of us with dodgeballs. Good on the physical, not so good on the educational, traumatizing on the emotional.
So why put our kids through this gauntlet of rubber balls, plastic butt scooters, and emotional emasculation? As I said earlier, times have changed. Today’s typical physical education program is very different in a very good way. Physical education focuses on teaching children the importance of being active and that everyone can be active. Gone are the contests that favor the big strong kids. They have been replaced with programs that challenge kids to set personal performance goals that support good health.
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| The finger pinches still hurt. |
When I was researching, that was probably my favorite thing to find. Not the picture of the butt scooter but that adults are trying to teach young people how to live healthy and be active. That despite budget cuts people are still trying to educate their children. I loved to see that we as a country are starting to open our eyes to this growing problem. It was my favorite thing to find because it gives me hope that I will be able to find a job doing what I want to do. And that is educating young people on the importance of being active, playing outside, turning off the XBOX and turning on their imaginations.
If we are to move forward as a healthy, successful nation, our children’s health must become a priority. We must hold ourselves accountable for our own health and future, taking a person responsibility for ourselves and for those around us.
It was in the blog title.
With good health and strong hamstrings,
Mike
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