Kids in a kids health club.
Craig Horowitz, 14, with a trainer, Taylor Kevin Isaacs, is among a growing number children using health clubs.
Posted on 01/22/2006 12:01:26 PM PST by summer
Kids in a kids health club.
Craig Horowitz, 14, with a trainer, Taylor Kevin Isaacs, is among a growing number children using health clubs.
AT 13, Jena Jerve has managed to stretch her days to do it all: keep a 4.0 grade-point average, play center on her school's basketball team and nourish her love for dancing with six hours a week of tap, ballet and jazz.
But over the last year and a half Jena has also been cramming a less typical extra-curricular activity into her busy schedule, the health club. There, for about an hour twice a week, she has discovered the rigors of weight training and the joy of building stamina on a stationary bike and fitting into jeans. "I've lost inches around my stomach and waist and legs," said Jenna, who is 5-foot-9 and weighs about 175 pounds. "I have a lot of energy now."...
The fitness industry has been tapping into the children's market in earnest over the last couple of years. Fitwize 4 Kids, a gym for children 6 to 15 where workouts are rewarded with apples and bananas and include play like jumping rope, spun off 14 franchises last year nationwide. It charges $50 to $125 a month, and plans to open dozens more.
The International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association says children are the second-fastest-growing market for health clubs after baby boomers over 55. Nearly one third of its 5,000 member clubs offer a children's component, the association said, and more than 4.6 million American children between 6 and 17 hold memberships with health clubs, compared with 3.2 million in 2000...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Your mom sounds exactly like my mom. I wonder why you and I are so different? :)
Now a days, moms are too paranoid to let their children play outside. Too dangerous. That's how they wind up dissappearing, they say.
But with respect to this article, marketeers will always find new ways to collect dollars from other people's disposable incomes.
1. Drugs + illegal aliens = dangerous neighborhoods, kids can't play outdoors
2. Career-minded parents want de-facto baby-sitters (mommy not around)
3. Kids crave video-games
Sounds about right!
Hah! My mom would make us do housework and then kick us out.
"Now a days, moms are too paranoid to let their children play outside. Too dangerous. That's how they wind up dissappearing, they say.
"
Not where I live. I live in Saint Paul, a city of almost 300,000 people. My neighborhood is a subdivision from the 1950s. The kids here are out all the time, winter and summer, whenever they're not in school. In the summer they're all over the place on bicyles, skates and are running in and out of each other's houses. In the Winter, they've got their sleds. There's a lake about six blocks from my house, with a fishing pier. The kids are over there fishing during the spring, summer, and fall.
Hasn't been a kid grabbed here for a long, long time. Like my wife and I, most of the houses have the curtains on their big front windows wide open all year long. We're all watching all the kids. Anyone strange shows up in this neighborhood, half a dozen adults are heading out the door to see who they are.
It's pretty old school here.
Simple solution - pay attention. I grew up in NYC, we were outside all the time, and the neighbors paid attention to all the kids.
I live in a rural area now, and compared to the cities, very few of the kids are obese. Half the time getting my own 7 year old to come in the house is a major task. It's a mindset. don't let them out and they won't want to go out.....let them out and they won't want to come in. I prefer the latter.
A co-worker once told me the only reason she worked was to keep her precious darlings in the designer jeans and shoes they demanded.
Her husband managed a Cracker Barrel, so ya know he put in 70h weeks.
Who watched the little darlings (teens)?
"In the Summer, my mom didn't want to see us, except for lunch and at suppertime. If we showed up any other time, she'd give us a glass of lemonade and kick us back out of the house. Great mom!"
Heck, your mom was a cupcake! We had our baloney on white bread with mayo sandwiches handed to us to eat under the tree out back, and I learned early on if I went into the house too many times to get a drink mom would probably make me stay inside.Something about the screen door slamming and letting in too many flies. So we drank out of the garden hose. Ah, those were the days...
The one I don't understand is the girl who has a 4.0 gpa, plays basketball, dances, a busy life -- why does she need to go to a health club to build stamina? I would think she needs more time for rest and recovery, to conserve energy -- than the need for more exercise. She has a greater need to conserve energy.
Like many stories appearing in the old media, it doesn't add up -- or adds up to a 40-hour day.
It isn't just an excuse. Have you seen posters here blast "irresponsible" parents for allowing their children out of sight and tragic things happening to them?
Did you see her height/weight/age combination? How can she be playing basketball, dancing, etc, and gaining that kind of weight?
"So we drank out of the garden hose."
Us, too, as long as we weren't using it to hose each other down. Kids will take care of their own exercise as long as they are forced to be outdoors. That's the problem these days. The little buggers are inside playing video games.
I have a 8 year old nephew. I don't think he's ever outside for more than the time it takes to go to the car or back into the house. Fat little kid, too, just like his mom and dad.
I took him fishing a couple of times last summer in my boat. He whined the whole time, even when he caught a 5 lb. Northern Pike. "It's slimy!" I give up. He's not my kid. I'm willing to take him along, but not if he's just going to whine and complain.
I tried taking him fishing with his father one time. His father's worse than he is. He never even tried fishing. He sat there and ate candy bars and drank beer. I offered to let him drive the boat and he wouldn't even do that.
The kid's going to grow up to be a fat cretin. It doesn't look like there's anything I can do to help. Time's running out.
Something about leading a horse to water comes to mind...
Shame, isn't it.
Well, you know how they write these media stories now:
They find one person who is 13, another that is 5'9", another who is 175, another kid who plays basketball, one who does ballet, one who does jazz, one who has a 4.0 gpa, one who works out in a health club and voila! all those attributes appear in one person -- happened once in the past, or will happen sometime in the future -- but they can't be sure where, when, who, what, how --
Dads too. My coworker will not let his 3rd grade daughter walk to school, even though it's about 1/2-3/4 mile, and only a block or two off of their street. The mother ought to at least walk her to and from school, but Mom is pretty big too.
OTOH, I'm fat, I walked almost a mile to elementary school, rarely had a ride either way, even in cold weather with heavy snow. In Jr. Hi and High school I walked about 1.5 miles and didn't start riding until the last half or so of high school. (By which time I was already "Big"). I swam, played baseball on organized teams, played basketball and football, as well as baseball, in the neighborhood. None of that helped me. I started getting big in elementary school.
Are you trying to lost weight now? If you need some inspiration, check out these tv shows on the cable channel, The Discovery Health Channel. I was surfing the dial tonight and was shocked to see programs like "The Half-Ton Man," and "The Story of Jackie" concerning a 627 pound woman. Watching even a minute of those shows is enough to get anyone to think seriously about changing their eating routine and lifestyle!!!
lost weight = lose weight
Since I was 18, if I wasn't gaining, I was trying to lose. I saw part of one of those shows, but home cooked meal interfered. I don't get those very often due to employment circumstances. In the last 2 1/2 years I've lost about 70-80 pounds, but seem to be on a plateau at the moment. If I can maintain during the winter, it's all to the good.
Actually I didn't find what I did see very encouraging. But there was nothing I didn't already know.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.