Couch Potatoes
Out-of-shape kids are likely to mature into out-of-shape adults, in the process becoming prime candidates for a host of avoidable illnesses and disabilities. Studies by the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and the U.S. Public Health Service indicate that American kids by and large are woefully out of shape. The last 10 years has even seen some decline in the physical condition of children. Young people today tend to be fatter than they were 20 years ago, and some already show signs pointing to the early onset of heart disease and other health problems.
Poor physical fitness in American youth is not a new thing. Mass medical screenings of young men called up for military service in World Wars I and II revealed a high degree of physical ailments. Autopsies on men killed in the Korean War, many of them still in their teens, found that a shockingly large percentage would likely have suffered premature heart attacks or strokes. In the decades since then it’s become clear beyond any doubt that proper diet and exercise keep people healthier, while poor eating habits and avoidance of exercise encourage the development of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and some cancers.
The ignorance that may once have existed about what promotes good health no longer exists. Then why are so many kids in poor physical shape?For one thing, physical education has been downgraded in a lot of schools, partly for budgetary reasons and partly for social ones. Children who move around less than they once did at school also tend to move around less at home. Blame the national addiction to television for that;most kids, surveys show, spend more time sedentarily staring at TV than they spend in the classroom. And while they stare they are likely to eat, with junk food the snack of choice.
There’s no secret about what should be done. Physical education classes ought to be mandatorily restored as part of the school day, and taught by people who know what they’re doing. And health education should be given the emphasis in the curriculum that it deserves.
Parents concerned about the health of their children now and in later life can help by drastically limiting the time kids devote to watching TV. Looking at TV exercises the body even less than it exercises the mind. (Reading the newspaper while jogging is OK.)
