Posted on 08/14/2008 5:12:28 PM PDT by InvisibleChurch
All the safety measures we have taken to protect our children have produced such harmful effects as increasing the rate of childhood obesity; in fact, one in six children in America is obese, and many of them face a lifetime of chronic illness, says the Center for Disease Control. However, the situation could cure itself if children would just get off the sofa!
But how do we lure children outside? One key attraction is risk, says Philip Howard, chairman of Common Good. Risk is fun, he continues, at least the moderate risks that were common in prior generations. Today, America has stripped all the fun out of playtime:
There is nothing left in playgrounds that would attract the interest of a child over the age of four. Exercise in schools is carefully programmed, when it exists at all. Some schools have even banned tag and running at recess! Little Leagues forbid sliding into base, some towns ban sledding and high diving boards are history. Safety is important, says Howard, but do the resulting trade-offs, such as the increase in childhood obesity, make sense? There is one solution, he adds, someone on behalf of society should be authorized to make these choices, and the courts must honor those decisions. Otherwise, the pious accusation of safety fanatics will guarantee a cultural spiral downwards toward the lowest common denominator.
For America's children, that means spending more than six hours per day staring at a screen, Howard concludes. Is that the way we want our children to grow up?
Source: Philip K. Howard, "Why Safe Kids Are Becoming Fat Kids," Wall Street Journal, August 13, 2008.
For text:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121858701285435131.html
For more on Health Issues:
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_Category=16
Back in the old days, kids in the summertime would go out and play all day. Kids would play baseball or other games. Kids could just ride bikes and explore the neighborhood, go to friends houses, etc. without having the parents have to make a play date.
Nowadays, parents want their kids supervised at all times, and don’t let them have the freedom that previous generations of kids did to go outside and play. I know that the fear of crime, perverts, and accidents is what has driven today’s parents to want their children supervised at all times.
If the alternative is for kids to sit around, watch TV, and play video games, then that explains part of the obesity problem. They aren’t getting enough exercise.
Mothers used to know and control every bite of food their kids ate - now mothers are at work while their kids over feed themselves.
I remember vividly leaving the house around 9 or so, coming back for a quick lunch, then leaving and not coming back until dinner. The rule was to never be out of range of my mom’s yell. If she called me for and I couldn’t hear her, I was too far away. That being said, she had quite a voice and other moms would relay messages. I biked, built forts, raced, climbed trees and yep, did some things I shouldn’t have. The rains would come down and we wouldn’t come in, that was the time to go build a damn in the culvert. Nowadays? Kids are inside all day long in my neighborhood all summer long. Kind of sad.
When I think of the things I did as a kid I can’t believe I lived past the age of 12. I remember having a firecracker fight with one of my buddies, we had a pack of three hundred, took them off one by one, lit them and threw them at each other.....oh that was fun day till the neighbor complained. It was good excercise too, being chased by the one with the lit firecracker.
That someone used to exist: it used to be called 'parents'.
The way to fix fat kids in public schools is to fire every teacher, bureaucrat administrator and janitor in America who can’t do 10 sit-ups and 10 push-ups.
Then hire veterans to take over.
My swim coach was a Marine veteran of Guadalcanal, and my Algebra teacher landed at Normandy.
We are wasting our children’s most precious resource - veterans.
One thing you missed. Back in the good ol’ days, moms were at home and didn’t send their kids to camps all summer long.
We’re home, and there are no kids to play with.
It’s a pain to schedule “playdates”.
Replace these:
With these:
My mom would blow this horn at dinner time, and we were all supposed to come home. I was the homebody and loved just playing with my toys, but my brothers played outside all day long.
That describes my summer days. In the summer of 1960, when I was nine years old, would take frequent bike rides and came to know every alley in the five-square-mile area surrounding my home in West Whittier, Calif. I would often run errands, riding up the alley to the supermarket or the drugstore--which would be unthinkable today, with gang graffiti covering the walls along many of these same alleys.
It’s so true, so sad, and so obvious it hurts. They’ll wake up, hopefully sooner than later.
Me, too. I've tried to rear my boys the same way, but it is very difficult in this neighborhood where everyone is anxious to prove they are a more protective parent than anyone else. But my boys are slim and trim.
(I even let my 16 year old use the power saw today. I'm certain neighbors who witnessed it were aghast!)
When my mom needed a break from the four of us, she would give me 50 cents and the 4 of us would walk down a 4 lane divided highway well over 2 miles there and back. 50 cents could buy a bunch of candy and the walk got us out and away for quite a while. Can you imagine now sending a 12 year old girl with a 10 year old boy, a 6 year old girl, and a 3 year old that far? I think someone would call social services
All that is gone, not only the exercise, but the freedom.
We did just find the new, safer version of Jarts at K-Mart. Still a fun game...
That sounds like me at that age.
Just got back from visiting my brother and his three kids. They are the most paranoid people I have ever been around. My brothers wife and mother-in-law have the kids terrified of everything. They don’t want the little boy to play baseball because it is too dangerous!?! I have 3 boys who are wide open until they hit the bed, sports, dirtbikes, hunting, fishing, camping, bb guns, the whole nine yards. My youngest son told my sister in law that you’re not hurt until the bone is sticking out, she about had a cow! LOL I feel horrible for those kids, so do my parents, it’s breaking their heart.
I rarely see fat kids at the skatepark. But I see nothing but fat kids at the mall.
I used to regulary walk to a 5&dime store at a shopping center near my parents house.
My parents still live in the home that I grew up in, and I would never let my kids walk to that shopping center.
There’s a bunch of apartments near the shopping center that were turned into low income housing, and the crime in the area skyrocketed.
I think they are finally starting to get rid of all those apartments, and I think the neighborhood will be much better.
It’s Lake Highlands in Dallas. It’s really beautiful, and the single family homes are still great. It’s just the crime in the area has really gone up.
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.