A Return Home

Recently we talked about kids who are overweight. How did they become that way? While there are many different variables to take into consideration, I would like to share a few facts with you. These facts are listed in the book Kid Shape, by Naomi Neufeld, MD, FACE.

• Only one-third of all kids living a mile or less from school walk to classes, according to a study reported in Women and Health.

• Today only about half of all middle schools and a quarter of all high schools require three full years of physical education, according to the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports Research Digest. Only 16 percent of girls still have daily physical education beyond the 11^th grade, reports Women and Health.

• The average nine-year-old child watches 25 hours of television per week, according to a study published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

• If a child is obese at age seven, that child has a 40 percent chance of remaining obese as an adult, warns a report in Pediatric Clinics of North America. For an obese adolescent, the risk of adult obesity rises to 70 percent.

• Kids show a significant decline in daily activity levels as they mature, according to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Children and Youth Fitness study, with 18-year-olds expending only half the calories (proportioned to body size) they expended at age six.

• Eighty-five percent of all five-year-old children in the United States cannot pass a basic physical fitness test, finds a University of Minnesota at Minneapolis study.

I find these facts to be shocking. We need to help our children and the youth of today. We need to do it now. I implore each of us to take action to ensure a bright tomorrow for the children in our lives. What can you do to make a difference?

Photo by Paul Anderson

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