Comments on: Communities for Healthy Kids

By: Cheryl

Cheryl — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:59:27 +0000

I agree with Wendy. As a suburbanite, we shuffled our kids off to sports because we perceived our neighborhood as too risky for them to be outside for unsupervised, unstructured play.

By: Thabo

Thabo — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:22:04 +0000

I agree with the sentiments of proividing children with activities that result in physical exercise.
The problem with sport is that everybody has forgotten that it is meant to be recreation. It is all about winning, the other day, I was told it was about discipline. No wonder many kids have no interets.
In the interests of disclosure, I was one of those kids who did not enjoy the competitive nature of sport,

By: Wendy

Wendy — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 05:21:58 +0000

As this article suggests, I think the key to fit kids is unstructured opportunities for physical activity rather than structured ones like basketball or soccer. While the latter are great as an extra if the child is into it, what will keep our kids fit is encouraging cycling and walking as part of daily transportation to school, work, shop, etc. And encouraging a certain amount of “outside play time” that might involve kicking a ball back and forth, or might involve letting the child figure out their own games.

By: MPS

MPS — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:17:49 +0000

Mike L. – I think what you point out is definitely at least a portion of the problem. I recall an article from the NY Times that pointed out this problem, although as often is the case with the Times, it skews towards a more upper-middle-class perspective. Even though the article is over 10 years old, I think it’s still quite relevant.

http://www.nytimes.com/specials/teens/stein.html

I think as long as parents are generally encouraging physical activities and a moderately active lifestyle, then things will be ok.

By: Mike L.

Mike L. — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:37:33 +0000

Is an effect of our sports-celebrity “winning is everything” culture, that kids who are poor at sport soon stop participating?
I was disappointed to watch a local kid’s basketball game where the less talented kids spent the whole time sitting on the bench. The coach (and the parents of the talented) obviously thought that winning was the most important thing.