Kids worldwide are less fit than their parents were, study s

[Reverenddel]

Kids worldwide are less fit than their parents were, study shows
Published November 19, 2013 / Associated Press
Today's kids can't keep up with their parents. An analysis of studies on millions of children around the world finds they don't run as fast or as far as their parents did when they were young.

On average, it takes children 90 seconds longer to run a mile than their counterparts did 30 years ago. Heart-related fitness has declined 5 percent per decade since 1975 for children ages 9 to 17.

The American Heart Association, whose conference featured the research on Tuesday, says it's the first to show that children's fitness has declined worldwide over the last three decades.

"It makes sense. We have kids that are less active than before," said Dr. Stephen Daniels, a University of Colorado pediatrician and spokesman for the heart association.

Health experts recommend that children 6 and older get 60 minutes of moderately vigorous activity accumulated over a day. Only one-third of American kids do now.

"Kids aren't getting enough opportunities to build up that activity over the course of the day," Daniels said. "Many schools, for economic reasons, don't have any physical education at all. Some rely on recess" to provide exercise.

Sam Kass, a White House chef and head of first lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move program, stressed the role of schools in a speech to the conference on Monday.

"We are currently facing the most sedentary generation of children in our history," Kass said.

The new study was led by Grant Tomkinson, an exercise physiologist at the University of South Australia. Researchers analyzed 50 studies on running fitness - a key measure of cardiovascular health and endurance - involving 25 million children ages 9 to 17 in 28 countries from 1964 to 2010.

The studies measured how far children could run in 5 to 15 minutes and how quickly they ran a certain distance, ranging from half a mile to two miles. Today's kids are about 15 percent less fit than their parents were, researchers concluded.

"The changes are very similar for boys and girls and also for various ages," but differed by geographic region, Tomkinson said.

The decline in fitness seems to be leveling off in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and perhaps in the last few years in North America. However, it continues to fall in China, and Japan never had much falloff - fitness has remained fairly consistent there. About 20 million of the 25 million children in the studies were from Asia.

Tomkinson and Daniels said obesity likely plays a role, since it makes it harder to run or do any aerobic exercise. Too much time watching television and playing video games and unsafe neighborhoods with not enough options for outdoor play also may play a role, they said.

Other research discussed global declines in activity.

Fitness is "pretty poor in adults and even worse in young people," especially in the United States and eastern Europe, said Dr. Ulf Ekelund of the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences in Oslo, Norway.

World Health Organization numbers suggest that 80 percent of young people globally may not be getting enough exercise.

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WERE!? SHOOT MOST KIDS CANNOT KEEP UP WITH ADULTS RIGHT NOW! I DUST THEIR LIL" KEISTERS LIKE END TABLES WHEN WE'RE WALKING, OR LIFTING!

[Remek]

Guess those XBox football games dont really help. Oh well, go eat some chocolate donuts and console yourselves.

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[Remek]

Yes. The pun was intended.

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[dorminWS]

"Tomkinson and Daniels said obesity likely plays a role, since it makes it harder to run or do any aerobic exercise. Too much time watching television and playing video games and unsafe neighborhoods with not enough options for outdoor play also may play a role, they said."
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I wish these people would pull their heads out of their asses, quit reversing the obvious causation here, and just look at the facts. Kids aren't sedentary because they are obese; they're obese because they are sedentary. It isn't that hamburgers and Pepsi-Cola are suddenly metabolic poison after 100 years of people eating them; it is that within the last 10-15 years kids (and a lot of adults) have become sedentary couch potatoes for a lot of reasons:

(1) Lawlessness and disorder in many areas make parents afraid to send the kids outside to play.

(2) For some reason there is either more child abduction, molestation and murder than there used to be or there is, thanks to the 24/7 media news cycle, a perception that there is much more of it. Either way, parents have another reason to lock the kids inside. Think: When was the last time you heard some kid’s mother tell them to go outside and play?

(3) Video games/computer gaming. 'Nuf said.

(4) Social media. No need to get up off the couch and go down to the park or the drug store; you can hang out with your buddies on Facebook or whatever.

(5) Proliferation of working moms, which means not only no parental supervision for the latchkey kids' snacking and activities between 3PM and quitting time, but also much less chance that the family will eat home-cooked meals instead of fast or pre-processed food for supper.

(6) Wussification of America. Little Johnny's too sensitive to play that brutal old football. Riding a bike requires so much preparation by way of protective equipment and supervision it's a PITA to both the parent AND the kid, so it seldom if ever happens. And so forth and so on.....

(7) Television. When I was a boy, it was pretty much rationed. No way in hell would the parents have tolerated the family eating meals while watching TV. You ate around the family table, were engaged by the adults in conversation aimed at facilitating your education and supervision, and were monitored for table manners and general decorum. And then the TV got turned on for the news and perhaps one or two TV shows that your parents liked and approved of for your consumption. Today everybody shovels in some kind of grub a good portion of the time they are spending most of their at-home hours sitting on their asses in front of the idiot box; which plays 24/7 in some homes and from daylight to dark in almost all of the rest of them.

(8) Automobiles. I know – they’ve been around 100 years or so. But when I was a teenager, very few of us had our own dedicated cars. We sometimes got to use the family car. So we did a lot of walking. The City schools didn’t pick kids up on a bus and haul them 2 blocks to school. Some kids walked a mile or more to school. None of us ever thought twice about walking the best part of a mile to a friend’s house. Now in many households when a kid turns 16, they get a car – and damn near forget how to walk.

(9) Look around you. When I was a boy people (even people with a few bucks) seldom ate out; it was a very special occasion. And if you ate what we now call "fast food" (to the extent it existed back then), it was considered to be sub-par nourishment. Now the ground is covered with eating places; most of which deep fry everything and fill most of your belly with bread, 'taters and high-fat "sauces". If you go shopping, you eat somewhere. If you go to the movies, you eat somewhere before you come home (in addition to the popcorn, nachos and candy). If you go almost anywhere and do almost anything, you eat somewhere before you come home. We used to sit down around the family dinner table and eat for nourishment. Now we are a society that eats for entertainment.

So the “social engineers” team up with celebrities looking for some way to look meaningful like Michelle Obama and Mayor Bloomberg decide to “fix what’s wrong”, and demonize hamburgers and soda pop. It’s really not all that different from the people who blame guns for “gun violence”. We don’t need more regulation; we need more personal responsibility. It’s that simple.

[Remek]

^^^thumbs up to that

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[mamabearCali]

It has likely several causes.

1. Kids are encouraged to be less active than the used to be. When I was little we could play in the front yard or the back yard. Our neighbors could come over and we played all around the neighborhood within a block radius. These days if you are not right beside your elementary aged child if he leaves your yard you can be reported to CPS. So parents trying to be responsible and keep their kids safe are hamstrung by the system.

2. More moms work. It is just true. When a mom works she has less time to make good meals. When I worked we ate out at least twice a week because I was simply too exhausted to do anything else. I knew students of mine that never ever ate a meal cooked at home.

3. The food has changed. Between apspartame and sucralose in everything to GMO's to ultra-pasteurized milk everything is different. It is very hard to get real food if you don't know what and how to do it. Hamburger Helper is not as nutritious as sausages with potato and butter. It also has many more ingredients.

Don't blame the kids, don't blame the parents, it is a whole system working together that either malevolently or inadvertently is making us all less healthy.

[skeeterss0]

I bet those modern kids have better eye hand corodination, stronger finger muscles, and play video games like modern warfare better than us old ones could at their age tho.

[Remek]

Good way to live a long time.

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[Reverenddel]

The problem is many, the solution is simple.

I quote Bob Newhart: "Stop it. Juuust...Stop."

[mamabearCali]

The problem is many, the solution is simple.

I quote Bob Newhart: "Stop it. Juuust...Stop."

Stop what though? If I am worried that I will lose my kids if I let them play around the corner where I can't immediatly see them I am going to do what I must.

If our economy is based on each family needed two bread earners then it is hard (but not impossible) for a family to choose for mom to stay home. And that is in a two parent household. Half of all kids are born into a 1 parent household.

Schools are the play tow of the socialists. They are more concerned with indocrinating Johnny and Susie than with giving them 45 minutes of play time to get exercise during the day.

How do you teach people who are two generations removed from the kitchen how to cook. How do you get women who have been indocrinated their whole life that being in the kitchen =being a stupid worthless cow to cook for their family?

This problem has been long in coming. The solution will be equally long.

[Reverenddel]

Stop worrying. Put your faith in God. Do your best.

But freedom to explore, fail, and learn make kids stronger.

[Remek]

How do you get women who have been indocrinated their whole life that being in the kitchen =being a stupid worthless cow to cook for their family?

Sort of tangent to the thread, but man! That is a great statement, MbC!!!!

[mamabearCali]

Stop worrying. Put your faith in God. Do your best.

But freedom to explore, fail, and learn make kids stronger.

I am not worrying. My kids will be great. We let them play. We let them explore. We teach them right from wrong and how to choose to do right. Chris and I made the decision for me to be at home and educate them. I cook three meals a day for my kiddos. We eat out roughly two to three times a month. We are doing pretty good on the whole.

What I said was culture wide. How do we fix it....one family at a time. That is what I am doing.

[mamabearCali]

How do you get women who have been indocrinated their whole life that being in the kitchen =being a stupid worthless cow to cook for their family?

Sort of tangent to the thread, but man! That is a great statement, MbC!!!!

Thank you Remek. I take great joy in giving my family decent meals. But that is not as valued in many places as a high powered career. Oh well. I am not here to please them.

[GeneFrenkle]

Other causes are high density housing with no yards to play in, neighbors who get ticked that kids step in their 0.033 acre lot, neighborhood schools that prohibit afterschool play, etc.

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[WRW]

Used to play stick ball in the street. Football, too. Kick the can, tag, etc. Pogo stick didn't take much room. There's plenty of exercise to be had.

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[GeneFrenkle]

Hard to do in high density housing areas because of the number of cars driving on those streets. Can't play in the small playgrounds/tot lots because folks will chase the kids off due to noise.

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[WRW]

Well, it was S.E. DC, but that was back when they still had trolleys.

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[Reverenddel]

MAMA FOR THE WIN!

Yep! I cook all the meals in the house... and people look at me as if I'm subservant to the girlfriend. Not realizing, I cook HEALTHIER, and BETTER than she does!

I have no issues cooking for the household. In fact, at one point, roommates would gain between 10-20 lbs from my cooking because I would make full on dinners when they were used to grabbin' crappy fast food, and not finishing it.

Big difference between a cheeseburger from fast food, and a pot roast with tarragon mashed taters, grilled asparagus, and homemade biscuits.

[Remek]

^^^ almost the same thing in this house. My wife got jealous that I was cooking so well, so she has taken to competing with me and we shares days of the week.

Yes, I admit, my wife already cooks better than me, but dont tell her that! Its nice to have only half the nights to cook, it leaves time to play with the kids!

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