Youths Found Less Fit, Heavier, More Inactive Than Decade Ago

School children weigh more, can run less and score worse on athletic performance tests than they did 10 years ago, according to a report released Thursday that warned of an “ominous” trend toward inactivity among the nation’s youth.

“American children are becoming more sedentary,” said Wynn F. Updyke, the director of the Amateur Athletic Union, which has been testing school children since 1943. “The active state is the natural state. People seem to be losing sight of that.”

Some measures of fitness, such as the numbers of pull-ups, sit-ups and flexibility, increased in most age groups. But the overall picture implied by the study is one of a video game-playing generation of couch potatoes whose parents are afraid to let them walk to school--where they rarely have to take a daily physical education class.

Key Findings

The report, the first to track fitness trends on a yearly basis, found:

--An increase in body weight among youths over 11, with high school males gaining an average of 14 pounds during the decade.

--A “significant” decline in heart and lung endurance, particularly in older youths, with an overall 10% increase in the time it takes to run a mile.

--A decline in the percentage of youths who tested at a satisfactory level in four areas--endurance runs, pull-ups, sit-ups and stretching--from 43% to 32%. Participants achieving outstanding levels remained at about 6%.

The study, funded by the Chrysler Corp., echoed one by the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, which said that American children were no more fit in 1985 than in 1975, and in some cases were even in worse condition.

The earlier study, for example, found that one of four boys between the ages of 6 and 12 could not do one pull-up and 40% could not do more than one. And only about a third of all students took part in any daily physical education--a number that is not thought to have changed since the 1985 study.

The new report was based on a random sample of 12,000 youths across the country who were tested in the four areas. The increase in body weight and decline in running times are particularly bad news, the report said, because they increase the risk of heart disease.

“The observed creeping weight gain is considered ominous, and appears to be consistent with reports of increasingly sedentary life styles and unbalanced nutritional habits of American youngsters,” the report noted.

But how do today’s overweight, underdeveloped children become tomorrow’s exercising and fit young adults?

According to Steve Guback, the acting executive director of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, they are attracted by “snazzy” exercise clothes and learn to enjoy it.

That and intimations of life’s finite duration.

“You reach an age when you realize that you are not immortal,” Guback said. “I don’t think a kid thinks of that.”

SLOWING DOWN

Minutes required by average children of each age group to complete their runs Age Distance Girls Boys 1980 1989 1980 1989 6-7 1/4 mile 2.50 2.68 2.33 2.60 8-9 1/2 mile 4.58 5.45 4.32 4.82 10-11 3/4 mile 7.37 7.98 6.52 7.30 12-13 1 mile 9.78 10.47 8.37 9.12 14-17 1 mile 9.63 10.70 7.53 8.63

SOURCE: Chrysler Fund-AAU Physical Fitness Program