(U-WIRE) -We live in a society today where sports have become a major entertainment industry. More and more people are going to sporting events. New leagues are popping up in regions across the country. Yet, I still do not see any children outside playing.
If sports have become the way people judge your university's value, if it has become a multi-billion dollar industry, who is playing?
Not children.
Time magazine printed a huge spread this summer on obesity in America and how much of a disturbing trend it is becoming. What is most alarming is how children today are the first generation expected not to outlive their parents. A good reason for this is a statistic in the articles that blew me away. In 1959, 80 percent of children played a sport every day. Every day running around the neighborhood with friends, riding bikes, a quick game of Wiffleball in the yard, tag, hide and seek. Some athletic activity.
Now that number has dropped to less than 20 percent. Where have all the children gone? Inside playing video games or watching reality television. They may be watching sports, but that activity is not inspiring them to go outside and play themselves.
This laziness is greatly helping fatten America. We are the most obese nation in the world, and a recent study showed Texas has one of the highest child obesity rates in the nation.
The problem not only exists at home -schools are affecting child obesity. When I was in elementary school, physical education was fun. It was the only time you got to do something to move around all day, so you took advantage.
Unfortunately, the magazine found the average amount of time children are actually aerobically active in gym is three minutes. Three minutes! That time is how long picking teams for kickball used to take. What do they do the rest of the period?
I am sure some children like to read if given the option during the new and improved optional physical education class. That is nice, but a growing mind needs a break from books and from learning and needs time to be a child.
What happened to the days when parents had to pull their children inside when the sun came down? What happened to children spending all of a summer day playing outside under the sun? Life is too short to live inside.
Nickelodeon has even made that point. Time wrote a small piece on a commercial produced by and shown on the children's television network. The commercial depicts a boy playing a video game, and a basketball keeps bouncing in the way and blocking his view of the screen. The ball finally pulls the plug from the console, and the message, Your ball needs you
appears. If that is not clever, I do not know what is. Every child who sees that commercial should get the message.
If you have friends or family who are children, encourage them to be active. Play with them. Look around your neighborhood and see how many children are outside playing at 7 p.m. or 2:30 on a Saturday afternoon. You will be surprised. Help bring sports and activity back into America's youth before it is too late. 17
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David Wiechmann
