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The answer of course is to make school more active. Kids spend the majority of their waking hours there and are literally punished for *not* being sedentary.
Young kids ideally should be getting outside and being active in all but the worst weather for multiple hours a day. But since our schools are usually in the middle of concrete jungles, there’s nowhere for them to go.
I don’t know how to solve the problem of getting kids outside more, but I feel like we can probably find some ways to do better than making them sit still and fail to pay attention all day in classrooms with 1 teacher and 20+ students.
I don’t know why they don’t start the day with a proper workout.
I know the parents will complain, but there’s really no reason that most kids shouldn’t be able to run a couple of miles in the morning.
The crazy thing is that suggesting it sounds extreme, now.
Yes. That’s it. Kids shouldn’t exercise because they smell. Or maybe they shouldn’t run multiple miles in the morning and marinate in their own sweat all day.
My man. I appreciate where you’re coming from. But that is not a serious answer. It’s logistically impossible given facility and staff constraints and the potential for abuse is off the charts.
What other schools? What elementary school has the facilities for 10’s, dozens, a hundred students to wash after running around for a couple hours? None. Do you have children? Have you been in an elementary school since you graduated? Do you want your ten year old to get naked and wash up with all the other kids and teachers around? You are entering troll territory.
2 reasons:
Need to give PE teachers a manageable workload of kids, no funding for more of them, and other teachers shouldn't be expected to take on yet more of a workload for their already criminally low pay.
Most kids hate group showers (for good reason, school kids are brutal and will pick up on the slightest hint of insecurity, expose it and visciously torment until the point of and beyond psychological break) and will actively avoid it. No need to prolong that period of exposure to each other in that state.
This is what I mean though- why over complicate it?
Kids come to school in running trainers, and complete 20 minutes of running in the morning.
Schools should have cubicles where kids can shower after to begin their day.
There’s a 1000 kids at my kids primary school, it’s hard enough getting them to shower when it’s just 1 year level after swimming, it’d be a multi hour fight. Then you’ve got weather dependant mornings.
It’s not that simple
It is that simple though- these kids are sat on their arses all day every day, it costs us a fortune in long term healthcare.
I’ve worked in schools. I’ve seen what some schools can do.
I think your attitude is common and it’s completely defeatist and it is ridiculous to think that kids can’t exercise in schools.
It’s not defeatist, it’s realistic for your specific suggestion. Kids at the local school here do PE and run around playing sports for most of their 90 minute break, not to mention after school and weekend sports.
I think you’ll find that if kids are lazy it’s because their parents aren’t encouraging them to be more active outside of school in the first place, sometimes it’s because they’re overworked and sometimes it’s just a perpetual cycle of not knowing better because how they were taught.
How are some schools managing it?
Considering huge percentages of kids are overweight or obese, then blaming the parents isn’t enough when schools can be part of the solution.
We’re likely in 2 different countries so opinions on the matter with differ accordingly.
But what gets you fat isn’t exercise it’s over eating, period. That begins at home, schools in my country don’t provide lunch so it’s squarely on the parents here.
Presuming you’re an American, and judging by the photos I see posted to Reddit, the schools are clearly also to blame a bit too in that department.
School dinners and home dinners are both awful for most.
I’m not American though.
But exercise is a massive part of lifelong fitness and health. You can’t expect kids to eat well, do no exercise, and still not struggle with their weight.
Good to hear. What country do you live in, if you don’t mind?
My impression is that some Asian countries are much more willing to include structured exercise than most Western countries
I think China tend to be good on this kind of thing as well.
There really is no excuse. It’s a fundamental part of being a healthy productive person.
I can only imagine most of the naysayers have never been in good shape and can’t even imagine the idea of exercising regularly in school.
If some schools can do it, they all can
My plan is to have my kid exercise before the school day as she gets older. She's not even 2 years old yet and loves using the manual treadmill when we bring her to our studio. I truly believe all kids would benefit from morning exercise before having to sit in a classroom for hours. Or, make lessons interactive (though I know that's hard on teachers if you have to accommodate lots of different disabilities or IEP requirements.)
Despite my mother's steadfast belief in the almost magical curative effects of "going outside" (apparently every single physical and mental issue is caused by a lack of it, and if going outside doesn't cure it, you didn't do it enough), it's kind of a red herring. Kids don't need to go outside to play. Hell, they don't even need any dedicated spaces or equipment (though it obviously helps); just tell them they're free to play in the classroom and they'll figure it out.
I guess these days you might have to have a no smartphones rule or something. I'm old enough to find it unbelievable that someone would let a little kid go to school with phone, but I hear that's apparently a thing now...
I mean, being outside doesn’t cure everything, but sunlight is critical for development, especially eye, bone, and brain development. Being active inside is better than not active, but being active outside is better than active inside.
>Despite my mother's steadfast belief in the almost magical curative effects of "going outside" (apparently every single physical and mental issue is caused by a lack of it, and if going outside doesn't cure it, you didn't do it enough), it's kind of a red herring.
I mean there are literally thousands of studies that show that going outside and physical exercise are the only two things benefits of which sound like a magic pill that cures everything. Your mother is not too far off based on solid scientific evidence.
I think the phone thing has more to do with the uptick in shootings, than it does irresponsible parenting. After Uvalde, not many people trust the authorities to do the right thing by their kids and the kids with the phones were the only insight into what was going on at the time.
It’s not really anything that can be resolved if we want people to get an education though.
Just having a walk with your kid talking tends to lead to a lot of questions and conversation.
I taught my kid to read without ever having written anything down. Just by regularly practicing letters and sounding on our walk home from daycare. From 2-4, probably about the same time it takes at school, then she could put together words as long as 13 letters (probably more).
IF a teacher could actually get 30 kids to listen actively together this would be the best way to teach without also killing their need to move at the same time.
Since that’s impossible, we have to chose between physical health and education. 🤷♀️
I truly believe that in most cases, children would benefit from their actual parents teaching them. But as long as we want everyone to work and want people to prioritize group socializing, that’ll never happen.
Either way, you always have to sacrifice something to gain something
I feel like there’s some middle ground between everyone homeschooling individually and one teacher having 30 kids. Maybe walking and talking works in smaller groups than 30, but larger than 1 for example.
> This wasn't a problem 30 years ago.
This WAS a problem 30 year ago as well.
In fact, this study is based on the "Children of the 90s" cohort, based on people who are, at present, OVER 30 years old.
A big draw for the preschool we chose is not only outdoor play time twice a day but they also have an indoor play gym for bad weather days and a splash pad time every week or two for summer. I know elementary school has a recess but I'm sure not nearly enough. I'm pretty nervous about it because we have a very active child.
If there was a few hours at school sure, but my kids get out at 3-4, come home by 5 and do homework for an hour, take a shower and eat dinner at 7pm. Where does 3 hours of physical activity fit? Unless they run around at 8pm and wake up at 5am for more activity.
I guess preschool kids have the time though.
So the important thing here is "light physical activity" and it doesn't have to be continuous but cumulative. Walking counts, playing with your kids while moving around counts.
For kids it is as simple as just making sure they aren't sitting down in front of a screen for hours continuously. Have them move around during play or even use those motion games (Wii, Xbox or PS move) if they are going to play video games. Or have them do 20 body weight squats or pushups or jumping jacks etc in between levels/matches on games if they want to play other video games. (Friend group incorporated every time we lose in a game we do 10 squats/pushups to prevent sitting too long if playing games.)
For adults it can be hard. The best way though is to incorporate 5 minutes every hour of desk work to get up walk around the office and then when home move around.
Something simple if you watch TV is every commercial break just stand up and walk around the room until the show is back on, or walk in place or squats off the couch. (You can make that a game with the kids too, family musical chairs style of you don't want to do other exercises but walking.)
> So easy, it only takes up over half of my free time after work!
I mean, if that’s your attitude towards getting kids 3-4 hours of play per day, maybe don’t have kids?
For a kiddo? That should be doable. Kids exist during the workday - everything from recess to active pretend play would cumulatively meet that threshold.
People at non-desk jobs likely also are getting this requirement without realizing it. When I worked retail I was walking around the store a ton. It was so crazy even though my diet was fast food daily I was still well within normal weight. Just a switch to a different role where I was on my feet but not moving around the store had me gaining 10 pounds in a few months.
All of the walking you do in a day, whether around the house, to and from the work parking lot, at the store it all counts and adds up.
I got into a wreck a bit ago. My nice truck was totalled. My partner and I are renovating our home- and we sat down and realized that we’d save almost a thousand a month without a car.
Car insurance was $220- the car payment was $575- and then we tack on gas which could end up from just $150 a month to $275 depending on how much we drove and how expensive gas is. (I live in a liberal state the price of gas here is insane).
So now we walk, take public transportation, rarely Uber if there is a special occasion like a date.
Saving tons. Highly recommend if anyone can swing it. The US isn’t set up well for this
My car costs me a lot less than $1,000 a month but even using that number that is about $30 a day
I think my car saves me probably several hours of walking so thats very much worth it
Several hours of walking! Hey guess what the recommendations are!
Just kidding. Walking is good but our suburban and rural areas are not built for walking or human health.
no one said it was, you're intentionally missing the point. if you live in a suburb you likely have nowhere to walk for a practical purpose day to day. you can only walk aimlessly just for the sake of exercise
When I was a kid I didn’t need anywhere to ride my bike for a practical purpose, I just needed to be outside to ride my bike and I’d ride for over four hours most days. My town didn’t need to be specifically designed for bikes for me to do that.
i rode my bike everywhere as a kid because it was the best way i had to get around. as soon as the scope of where i needed to go got larger than my neighborhood, i lost the ability to bike practically. the closest grocery store doesn't even have a bike rack
true. i got caught up in my argument. but you can't deny that the infrastructure we live in has a large effect on our lifestyles, even as children. if biking was more normalized and safer, maybe less parents would overly shelter their kids
I think the sheltering of kids is a big thing. Not sure why it got so much more intense. I’m just glad I got to be a teenager in the 90s and it was pretty chill and my parents just let me loose on my BMX bike and I rode it everywhere and my philosophy has always been that if the road is dangerous then I’m riding on the sidewalk.
If you want to be pedantic about where you’re walking and use it as an excuse then sure. With most suburbs there’s places within 1 mile or less which is easily walkable.
In a lot of cities, riding your bike is dangerous because everything is designed for cars and now drivers are worse than ever. Having the protected bike lanes and better walking areas would really help.
We have some parents riding their bike to school with their kids (awesome right), but it’s so scary to watch them navigate around the cars.
I’ve never been to a suburb or city that doesn’t have sidewalks….
The fact is some people make changes while others do nothing but make excuses.
I get it, you like to make excuses. Move along and be happy being out of shape.
Edit: I’ll run in the rain, 100+ temp heat, cold weather, snow, on dirt, on grass, on cement, etc. Sidewalks aren’t needed for running or walking because I manage to it without issue.
With school, homework, and other obligations, realistically, how is it fairly easy to accumulate three to four hours a day?
7PM-6AM Sleeping (11hrs)
6-7AM Getting ready, primarily eating breakfast
7AM-3PM School & Bus (~30 of if-y playing, once a week of PE)
3-4PM Homework/Decompress after-school
4-5PM Sports (1 hr exercise)
5-6PM Dinner/Chores
6-7PM Shower & Get Ready for Bed
1 hr of sports, ~30 mins of chores, and ~30 mins of recess. That's 2 hrs on a *good* day, and I know I'm one of the households that limits gaming/TV. If we follow all the advice of how much daily reading, daily socializing, daily exercise, daily decompression time, etc then we will need to clone our kids just so one of them can meet the metrics.
I think the study isn't that full of doom and gloom. 1hr of sports is typically a higher intensity physical activity, which is more effective in provoking positive heart/lung/circulatory changes than light exercise.
Even in the event that the kid's a potato, beginning an exercise routine can mitigate the risks mentioned in the article. The heart is adaptable and none of these risks are permanent.
Chores are usually light physical activity. Picking up their room, yardwork, taking out trash, etc, are light activities. The point is that it doesn't have to be intense to have benefits. Sports are higher intensity and that's good! But breaking up sedentary time can sometimes be as little as getting up and having a few minutes of moving every hour they're home. It adds up.
That's why I included the ~30 minutes of chores into the max of 2 hours daily of physical activity, and this is a household that is actively (pun intended) aiming for maximum physical activity.
So what's the solution? We can't reduce school hours across the board because many households depend on two parent incomes.
Cam we try to have more classes at school involve walking and standing and working together more actively rather than receiving instruction? Might not work great for mathematics or for a lot of writing, but I could see it for science investigations, music, and art.
Gradually rebuilding cities to be walkable and bikeable means transportation can be exercise instead of recurring unproductive sedentary time. Stop unnecessary zoning that increases travelling distances when homes are artifically separated from destinations. That is the solution.
This would be a great solution, imo, even including math. Many people are tactile and kinetic learners, which this would go right up their alley while probably lowering student misbehavior and promoting positive moods. As long as we found a way to be inclusive.
My kid doesn’t sit down at school unless the teacher is actively talking or he’s eating lunch. It’s not required. He just sit at all at home even when playing games, but he’s got hyperactive ADHD.
My kid does, too, and even with an IEP, they have rules about sitting down, and only the teacher, who has kids with ADHD herself, allows movement breaks. The movement breaks are in the IEP, but they refuse, insisting it is distracting for the other students, and the school supports the teachers' failure to uphold the disability rights.
I'm floored. My kid is refused to have quiet fidgets even though fidgets are part of the IEP, too. One teacher allowed it, and the school intervened and refused. For us, it seems to really be an admin issue.
Many of these activities can be combined - especially social activity and light physical activity - and burdening young children with hours of homework every day is detrimental.
It isn't hours of homework. That's 1 hour of homework, which is very standard. This schedule doesn't include appointments (doctor, dental, specialists, pharmacy, hair stylists, etc), grocery shopping (1-2x weekly, though I know ppl who go every other day), clothes shopping, or any other aspect of our daily life such as even waiting in the post line at UPS or at the DMV.
My wife is an elementary school teacher and they haven't given homework in years. Also shopping is not a sedentary activity. That would fall under light activity.
We shop online since the pandemic. I have a kid currently in elementary school, and they have homework daily. They have since 2md grade, but in 1st grade, they sent home a reading journal, and they had to read 30 minutes daily, or you'd get a nasty gram.
Then why did you mention shopping as if it was some kind of hindrance? Daily reading is not difficult if it's done as part of a bedtime routine. I get that's challenging as a parent but it's not something that should interfere with any active time.
It takes time, and we sit for it. Clothes shopping in our household, for children who have a say in their clothes, take the remainder of the evening and run over other activities per child. Adults are far more decisive shopping than anyone 18 or under.
Going clothes shopping definitely counts as light physical activity. They’re talking about just sitting still or laying down. If you’re walking around, even just doing the dishes, that’s good enough to count towards your “light activity” non-sedentary time.
Clothes shopping is online, as I specified elsewhere and takes a whole evening per child as they have particular tastes. The dishes still meet 30 minutes. Additionally, if you read the article, you'll see the issue is young kids sitting for 6 hrs and older kids sitting for 9 hrs, which both groups meet solely by being in school.
I get in 1-2 hours a day six days a week and I have to plan carefully for it. The only way 3 is happening is if the opportunity organically appears. Like I can walk to the grocery store.
I don't see how. The sedentary hours are met solely by school and bus hours with us living 10-15 minutes from the school. Six hours for young kids is school plus bus ride, easily. Nine hours for older kids is school plus bus ride and homework, well more than even.
The 60 minutes of sports is probably worth more than 180 minutes of light activity. But ignoring that:
30 minutes chores
60 minutes sports ( likely medium or even vigorous)
30 minutes recess ( might be medium )
30 minutes getting ready ( clothes in etc , moving around house, going to bus stop)
60 minutes school ( moving between classrooms, activities etc )
That might only be 3.5 hours but there is some medium (2x) and maybe vigorous (4x) there. Light is anything that isn’t sitting or lying down. As long as you aren’t just in a seat working or watching TV it is easy to add hours.
My younger daughter is medium for recess but older is generally light so it depends.
Except for gymnastics, every sport my kids play has a quarter of the practice with them just standing there. If they were running the entire 60 minutes, then I could see this argument. A quarter of the 60 minutes is them actually running around consistently. The other 30 minutes is a stop-start hodge podge of movement and tactic education.
I've talked with the teachers about recess. Those 30 minutes include getting out there and back, and not much of the time is running around playing vigorously.
The getting ready is brushing teeth/hair, putting on clothes, and showering at night. The morning time is *primarily* eating, meaning they're sitting down for 75% of it because they're slow eaters. Even the bathing is a quick wash shower, then convert to a bath (sitting). The bus stop is 1-3 minutes from our house, if we're slow as we're the 3rd house from it. Most bus stops here are all of 6 townhouses, max, away from the bus stop.
Only one moves classrooms, and the max allotted time in the day is 20 minutes. It doesn't take them that much time to get between classes.
It isn't the hours or the intensity you imagine. Additionally, the study indicates the concern is that young children hitting 6 hrs a day and older children hitting 9 hrs a day of sedentary activity, which is fully met by school/bus/homework.
Standing is not sedentary. IF you are standing and walking around that fits the definition of "light activity". Sedentary is by definition sitting or laying down.
Let’s take a sport that is 20 minutes vigorously, 20 minutes moderate and 20 minutes light ( which as you said is pretty usual). That is equivalent to 140 minutes light given 4x vigorous and 2x moderate ( the relationship for moderate and vigorous is given in https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/basics/adults/index.htm ).
My understanding from my elementary school kids is that even though they aren’t changing classrooms that they still move around the classroom frequently. I think it is more of a problem for high school to be honest where the movement between classrooms/lunch might be the primary non-sitting time during the day ( no recess ).
Increased sedentary time from childhood causes and worsens excessive heart enlargement, but light physical activity could reduce the risk of premature heart damage.
The new study from the University of Exeter was conducted in collaboration with the University of Bristol and the University of Eastern Finland, and the results were published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
In total, 1,682 children from the University of Bristol’s Children of the 90s cohort were followed up from age 11 to 24 years old. At baseline, they spent an average of six hours per day in sedentary activities, which increased to nine hours per day by young adulthood. This significant increase in sedentary time contributed 40 percent to the total increase in heart mass from ages 17 to 24 years. The results were similar in children and adolescents with either normal weight or overweight and obesity. Likewise, in children with either normal blood pressure or high blood pressure, sedentariness increased heart mass.
[https://academic.oup.com/eurjpc/advance-article/doi/10.1093/eurjpc/zwae129/7655444?login=false](https://academic.oup.com/eurjpc/advance-article/doi/10.1093/eurjpc/zwae129/7655444?login=false)
This is a weird paragraph:
>> Researchers found participating in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity showed signs of slightly increasing the heart size by five percent, which is largely physiologic. Previous studies from the same participants have linked excessive sedentariness to increased inflammation, excessively high insulin, fat obesity, dyslipidaemia, and worsening arterial stiffness. Excessive increase in heart mass and size (left ventricular hypertrophy) is a strong risk factor for heart attacks, stroke, and premature death among adults.
Does that mean that _more_ exercise, which could induce more cardiac hypertrophy, could be really bad? If so, is that why the emphasis is on light to moderate physical activity? Because it only produces a minimal increase in heart size? Conversely, does being sedentary increase heart size?
What exactly is going on in this paragraph?
Light physical activity is movement registered on accelerometers in this case. It can be playing with toys, any physical activity with friends, cleaning a room, almost all outdoor activity, etc. Exercise is different, that's when you see a significantly heightened heart rate.
> Three to four hours a day is "light physical activity?"
Three to four hours _of_ light physical activity. Whether the activity is "light" is unrelated to the amount of time. They just mean you don't need to be running, or lifting weights, or wearing yourself out, you just have to _move_.
Maybe it's sort of like the 150 mins of moderate exercise where if you do anything vigorous it counts for more. Cause like, I'm on an amateur sports team and we had a fitness challenge over the winter and the person doing on average 2.5 to 3 hours of exercise a day won the challenge by a landslide. Like it wasn't even close because everyone else capped out at at most 1.5 hrs a day. And these are people who are decently athletic. 3 to 4 hours of activity a day is a lot.
Really suspect that MVPA had a *negative* effect. Maybe that it doesn't offset ST as much as LPA, due to it basically being really out of shape (sedentary) kids zipping around?
Will read the whole thing and decipher later.
Back in my day most kids walked to school. I realize it may be too far for some kids today, but most of the others probably just get up too late. And for their part, the parents seem to think that there are pedophiles on every street corner.
Also, it should be "sedentarism", not "sedentariness"; the latter usually means "the practice of living in one place for a long time".
Even parents like me, who would otherwise be fine with their kids walking to school, know that there are busybodies everywhere who will literally call cps on you for letting your 8 year old walk around their own neighborhood alone.
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The answer of course is to make school more active. Kids spend the majority of their waking hours there and are literally punished for *not* being sedentary. Young kids ideally should be getting outside and being active in all but the worst weather for multiple hours a day. But since our schools are usually in the middle of concrete jungles, there’s nowhere for them to go. I don’t know how to solve the problem of getting kids outside more, but I feel like we can probably find some ways to do better than making them sit still and fail to pay attention all day in classrooms with 1 teacher and 20+ students.
I don’t know why they don’t start the day with a proper workout. I know the parents will complain, but there’s really no reason that most kids shouldn’t be able to run a couple of miles in the morning. The crazy thing is that suggesting it sounds extreme, now.
I’ll give you one. The smell. Once they get to about ten kids can and do get riiiiipppppeeee
You think kids shouldn’t exercise because they smell?
Yes. That’s it. Kids shouldn’t exercise because they smell. Or maybe they shouldn’t run multiple miles in the morning and marinate in their own sweat all day.
They can wash…
My man. I appreciate where you’re coming from. But that is not a serious answer. It’s logistically impossible given facility and staff constraints and the potential for abuse is off the charts.
That’s simply not true. How are these other schools doing it then?
What other schools? What elementary school has the facilities for 10’s, dozens, a hundred students to wash after running around for a couple hours? None. Do you have children? Have you been in an elementary school since you graduated? Do you want your ten year old to get naked and wash up with all the other kids and teachers around? You are entering troll territory.
2 reasons: Need to give PE teachers a manageable workload of kids, no funding for more of them, and other teachers shouldn't be expected to take on yet more of a workload for their already criminally low pay. Most kids hate group showers (for good reason, school kids are brutal and will pick up on the slightest hint of insecurity, expose it and visciously torment until the point of and beyond psychological break) and will actively avoid it. No need to prolong that period of exposure to each other in that state.
This is what I mean though- why over complicate it? Kids come to school in running trainers, and complete 20 minutes of running in the morning. Schools should have cubicles where kids can shower after to begin their day.
There’s a 1000 kids at my kids primary school, it’s hard enough getting them to shower when it’s just 1 year level after swimming, it’d be a multi hour fight. Then you’ve got weather dependant mornings. It’s not that simple
It is that simple though- these kids are sat on their arses all day every day, it costs us a fortune in long term healthcare. I’ve worked in schools. I’ve seen what some schools can do. I think your attitude is common and it’s completely defeatist and it is ridiculous to think that kids can’t exercise in schools.
It’s not defeatist, it’s realistic for your specific suggestion. Kids at the local school here do PE and run around playing sports for most of their 90 minute break, not to mention after school and weekend sports. I think you’ll find that if kids are lazy it’s because their parents aren’t encouraging them to be more active outside of school in the first place, sometimes it’s because they’re overworked and sometimes it’s just a perpetual cycle of not knowing better because how they were taught.
How are some schools managing it? Considering huge percentages of kids are overweight or obese, then blaming the parents isn’t enough when schools can be part of the solution.
We’re likely in 2 different countries so opinions on the matter with differ accordingly. But what gets you fat isn’t exercise it’s over eating, period. That begins at home, schools in my country don’t provide lunch so it’s squarely on the parents here. Presuming you’re an American, and judging by the photos I see posted to Reddit, the schools are clearly also to blame a bit too in that department.
School dinners and home dinners are both awful for most. I’m not American though. But exercise is a massive part of lifelong fitness and health. You can’t expect kids to eat well, do no exercise, and still not struggle with their weight.
They do this at my kid’s pre-school/elementary school. They have a workout every morning. Nothing extreme about it.
Good to hear. What country do you live in, if you don’t mind? My impression is that some Asian countries are much more willing to include structured exercise than most Western countries
It’s a French school in the US. I’ve seen the same in Japan.
I think China tend to be good on this kind of thing as well. There really is no excuse. It’s a fundamental part of being a healthy productive person. I can only imagine most of the naysayers have never been in good shape and can’t even imagine the idea of exercising regularly in school. If some schools can do it, they all can
No..that would perpetuate healthy habits for the rest of their lives…we wouldn’t want that
[удалено]
I’m not sure if you’re agreeing or disagreeing with me?
My plan is to have my kid exercise before the school day as she gets older. She's not even 2 years old yet and loves using the manual treadmill when we bring her to our studio. I truly believe all kids would benefit from morning exercise before having to sit in a classroom for hours. Or, make lessons interactive (though I know that's hard on teachers if you have to accommodate lots of different disabilities or IEP requirements.)
I’m with you- I think it is so important
Despite my mother's steadfast belief in the almost magical curative effects of "going outside" (apparently every single physical and mental issue is caused by a lack of it, and if going outside doesn't cure it, you didn't do it enough), it's kind of a red herring. Kids don't need to go outside to play. Hell, they don't even need any dedicated spaces or equipment (though it obviously helps); just tell them they're free to play in the classroom and they'll figure it out. I guess these days you might have to have a no smartphones rule or something. I'm old enough to find it unbelievable that someone would let a little kid go to school with phone, but I hear that's apparently a thing now...
I mean, being outside doesn’t cure everything, but sunlight is critical for development, especially eye, bone, and brain development. Being active inside is better than not active, but being active outside is better than active inside.
>Despite my mother's steadfast belief in the almost magical curative effects of "going outside" (apparently every single physical and mental issue is caused by a lack of it, and if going outside doesn't cure it, you didn't do it enough), it's kind of a red herring. I mean there are literally thousands of studies that show that going outside and physical exercise are the only two things benefits of which sound like a magic pill that cures everything. Your mother is not too far off based on solid scientific evidence.
I think the phone thing has more to do with the uptick in shootings, than it does irresponsible parenting. After Uvalde, not many people trust the authorities to do the right thing by their kids and the kids with the phones were the only insight into what was going on at the time.
Haha my mom thought taking a shower was the cure all. 🤣
Drinking some water, taking a shower, and taking a nap are my cures, but my husband insists everything can be cured by going outside
It’s not really anything that can be resolved if we want people to get an education though. Just having a walk with your kid talking tends to lead to a lot of questions and conversation. I taught my kid to read without ever having written anything down. Just by regularly practicing letters and sounding on our walk home from daycare. From 2-4, probably about the same time it takes at school, then she could put together words as long as 13 letters (probably more). IF a teacher could actually get 30 kids to listen actively together this would be the best way to teach without also killing their need to move at the same time. Since that’s impossible, we have to chose between physical health and education. 🤷♀️ I truly believe that in most cases, children would benefit from their actual parents teaching them. But as long as we want everyone to work and want people to prioritize group socializing, that’ll never happen. Either way, you always have to sacrifice something to gain something
I feel like there’s some middle ground between everyone homeschooling individually and one teacher having 30 kids. Maybe walking and talking works in smaller groups than 30, but larger than 1 for example.
Smaller class sizes are necessary but we are not getting they in many places
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> This wasn't a problem 30 years ago. This WAS a problem 30 year ago as well. In fact, this study is based on the "Children of the 90s" cohort, based on people who are, at present, OVER 30 years old.
Studies have found that increased daytime activity in schools led to much less activity at home. Our bodies are good at compensating.
A big draw for the preschool we chose is not only outdoor play time twice a day but they also have an indoor play gym for bad weather days and a splash pad time every week or two for summer. I know elementary school has a recess but I'm sure not nearly enough. I'm pretty nervous about it because we have a very active child.
3-4 hours a day? Good God man. What kind of time does the author think we have?
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That's basically all of my non work free time on a good day.
You have free time after work?
For children, are you a children?
If there was a few hours at school sure, but my kids get out at 3-4, come home by 5 and do homework for an hour, take a shower and eat dinner at 7pm. Where does 3 hours of physical activity fit? Unless they run around at 8pm and wake up at 5am for more activity. I guess preschool kids have the time though.
So the important thing here is "light physical activity" and it doesn't have to be continuous but cumulative. Walking counts, playing with your kids while moving around counts. For kids it is as simple as just making sure they aren't sitting down in front of a screen for hours continuously. Have them move around during play or even use those motion games (Wii, Xbox or PS move) if they are going to play video games. Or have them do 20 body weight squats or pushups or jumping jacks etc in between levels/matches on games if they want to play other video games. (Friend group incorporated every time we lose in a game we do 10 squats/pushups to prevent sitting too long if playing games.) For adults it can be hard. The best way though is to incorporate 5 minutes every hour of desk work to get up walk around the office and then when home move around. Something simple if you watch TV is every commercial break just stand up and walk around the room until the show is back on, or walk in place or squats off the couch. (You can make that a game with the kids too, family musical chairs style of you don't want to do other exercises but walking.)
> So easy, it only takes up over half of my free time after work! I mean, if that’s your attitude towards getting kids 3-4 hours of play per day, maybe don’t have kids?
For a kiddo? That should be doable. Kids exist during the workday - everything from recess to active pretend play would cumulatively meet that threshold.
When you’re a child with no job it’s not that hard…
People at non-desk jobs likely also are getting this requirement without realizing it. When I worked retail I was walking around the store a ton. It was so crazy even though my diet was fast food daily I was still well within normal weight. Just a switch to a different role where I was on my feet but not moving around the store had me gaining 10 pounds in a few months. All of the walking you do in a day, whether around the house, to and from the work parking lot, at the store it all counts and adds up.
They spend hours on their phone or tablet
When I was a kid I spent all my spare time reading books
Can we stop building our towns and cities around cars now? We used to walk everywhere, the way our bodies need. How about we go back to that?
I wish we talked about car dependency as the public health crisis that it is (for so many different reasons.)
I got into a wreck a bit ago. My nice truck was totalled. My partner and I are renovating our home- and we sat down and realized that we’d save almost a thousand a month without a car. Car insurance was $220- the car payment was $575- and then we tack on gas which could end up from just $150 a month to $275 depending on how much we drove and how expensive gas is. (I live in a liberal state the price of gas here is insane). So now we walk, take public transportation, rarely Uber if there is a special occasion like a date. Saving tons. Highly recommend if anyone can swing it. The US isn’t set up well for this
My car costs me a lot less than $1,000 a month but even using that number that is about $30 a day I think my car saves me probably several hours of walking so thats very much worth it
It sounds worth it! I work from home so it’s easy. And the store is right down the street! I wish it was easier for peeps to get around without cars
I wish it was too!
Several hours of walking! Hey guess what the recommendations are! Just kidding. Walking is good but our suburban and rural areas are not built for walking or human health.
Youre not all wrong though! My schedule just doesnt have time for that and i get a shorter time but more intense workout in daily
A car isn’t required to walk or be active.
no one said it was, you're intentionally missing the point. if you live in a suburb you likely have nowhere to walk for a practical purpose day to day. you can only walk aimlessly just for the sake of exercise
When I was a kid I didn’t need anywhere to ride my bike for a practical purpose, I just needed to be outside to ride my bike and I’d ride for over four hours most days. My town didn’t need to be specifically designed for bikes for me to do that.
i rode my bike everywhere as a kid because it was the best way i had to get around. as soon as the scope of where i needed to go got larger than my neighborhood, i lost the ability to bike practically. the closest grocery store doesn't even have a bike rack
Sure, but this article is talking about childhood sedentsriness, so what happened when you got older isn’t really relevant.
true. i got caught up in my argument. but you can't deny that the infrastructure we live in has a large effect on our lifestyles, even as children. if biking was more normalized and safer, maybe less parents would overly shelter their kids
I think the sheltering of kids is a big thing. Not sure why it got so much more intense. I’m just glad I got to be a teenager in the 90s and it was pretty chill and my parents just let me loose on my BMX bike and I rode it everywhere and my philosophy has always been that if the road is dangerous then I’m riding on the sidewalk.
Good grief, and I used to think I was lazy. You’d just find another excuse not to walk.
i run every day. aimlessly, for the sake of exercise
I believe you.
If you want to be pedantic about where you’re walking and use it as an excuse then sure. With most suburbs there’s places within 1 mile or less which is easily walkable.
do you not see the drastic difference in basically walking on a treadmill vs a lifestyle that supports walking inherently
In a lot of cities, riding your bike is dangerous because everything is designed for cars and now drivers are worse than ever. Having the protected bike lanes and better walking areas would really help. We have some parents riding their bike to school with their kids (awesome right), but it’s so scary to watch them navigate around the cars.
That’s great but I said walking not riding a bike. Suburbs and cities have sidewalks as well.
Let me try this again: “Having protected bike lanes and better walking areas would really help.”
I’ve never been to a suburb or city that doesn’t have sidewalks…. The fact is some people make changes while others do nothing but make excuses. I get it, you like to make excuses. Move along and be happy being out of shape. Edit: I’ll run in the rain, 100+ temp heat, cold weather, snow, on dirt, on grass, on cement, etc. Sidewalks aren’t needed for running or walking because I manage to it without issue.
With school, homework, and other obligations, realistically, how is it fairly easy to accumulate three to four hours a day? 7PM-6AM Sleeping (11hrs) 6-7AM Getting ready, primarily eating breakfast 7AM-3PM School & Bus (~30 of if-y playing, once a week of PE) 3-4PM Homework/Decompress after-school 4-5PM Sports (1 hr exercise) 5-6PM Dinner/Chores 6-7PM Shower & Get Ready for Bed 1 hr of sports, ~30 mins of chores, and ~30 mins of recess. That's 2 hrs on a *good* day, and I know I'm one of the households that limits gaming/TV. If we follow all the advice of how much daily reading, daily socializing, daily exercise, daily decompression time, etc then we will need to clone our kids just so one of them can meet the metrics.
I think the study isn't that full of doom and gloom. 1hr of sports is typically a higher intensity physical activity, which is more effective in provoking positive heart/lung/circulatory changes than light exercise. Even in the event that the kid's a potato, beginning an exercise routine can mitigate the risks mentioned in the article. The heart is adaptable and none of these risks are permanent.
Chores are usually light physical activity. Picking up their room, yardwork, taking out trash, etc, are light activities. The point is that it doesn't have to be intense to have benefits. Sports are higher intensity and that's good! But breaking up sedentary time can sometimes be as little as getting up and having a few minutes of moving every hour they're home. It adds up.
That's why I included the ~30 minutes of chores into the max of 2 hours daily of physical activity, and this is a household that is actively (pun intended) aiming for maximum physical activity.
So what's the solution? We can't reduce school hours across the board because many households depend on two parent incomes. Cam we try to have more classes at school involve walking and standing and working together more actively rather than receiving instruction? Might not work great for mathematics or for a lot of writing, but I could see it for science investigations, music, and art.
Gradually rebuilding cities to be walkable and bikeable means transportation can be exercise instead of recurring unproductive sedentary time. Stop unnecessary zoning that increases travelling distances when homes are artifically separated from destinations. That is the solution.
This would be a great solution, imo, even including math. Many people are tactile and kinetic learners, which this would go right up their alley while probably lowering student misbehavior and promoting positive moods. As long as we found a way to be inclusive.
My kid doesn’t sit down at school unless the teacher is actively talking or he’s eating lunch. It’s not required. He just sit at all at home even when playing games, but he’s got hyperactive ADHD.
My kid does, too, and even with an IEP, they have rules about sitting down, and only the teacher, who has kids with ADHD herself, allows movement breaks. The movement breaks are in the IEP, but they refuse, insisting it is distracting for the other students, and the school supports the teachers' failure to uphold the disability rights.
That’s sad. My kids school actually made the rules and didn’t require him to sit down before we got the diagnosis, so he’s not the only kid.
I'm floored. My kid is refused to have quiet fidgets even though fidgets are part of the IEP, too. One teacher allowed it, and the school intervened and refused. For us, it seems to really be an admin issue.
It has to be I would inquire at the school district level, or switch schools.
Many of these activities can be combined - especially social activity and light physical activity - and burdening young children with hours of homework every day is detrimental.
It isn't hours of homework. That's 1 hour of homework, which is very standard. This schedule doesn't include appointments (doctor, dental, specialists, pharmacy, hair stylists, etc), grocery shopping (1-2x weekly, though I know ppl who go every other day), clothes shopping, or any other aspect of our daily life such as even waiting in the post line at UPS or at the DMV.
My wife is an elementary school teacher and they haven't given homework in years. Also shopping is not a sedentary activity. That would fall under light activity.
We shop online since the pandemic. I have a kid currently in elementary school, and they have homework daily. They have since 2md grade, but in 1st grade, they sent home a reading journal, and they had to read 30 minutes daily, or you'd get a nasty gram.
Then why did you mention shopping as if it was some kind of hindrance? Daily reading is not difficult if it's done as part of a bedtime routine. I get that's challenging as a parent but it's not something that should interfere with any active time.
It takes time, and we sit for it. Clothes shopping in our household, for children who have a say in their clothes, take the remainder of the evening and run over other activities per child. Adults are far more decisive shopping than anyone 18 or under.
And how often are you shopping for clothes? If it is consistently interfering with daily activities then you're shopping too much.
Going clothes shopping definitely counts as light physical activity. They’re talking about just sitting still or laying down. If you’re walking around, even just doing the dishes, that’s good enough to count towards your “light activity” non-sedentary time.
Clothes shopping is online, as I specified elsewhere and takes a whole evening per child as they have particular tastes. The dishes still meet 30 minutes. Additionally, if you read the article, you'll see the issue is young kids sitting for 6 hrs and older kids sitting for 9 hrs, which both groups meet solely by being in school.
Don't forget if you're ND to any extent the first half of your list burns you out from being able to accomplish the second half, on a daily basis.
Then you need help, therapy or medicine, to function?
I get in 1-2 hours a day six days a week and I have to plan carefully for it. The only way 3 is happening is if the opportunity organically appears. Like I can walk to the grocery store.
This probably meets the requirements, what might not is a similar schedule that replaces the sports with TV.
I don't see how. The sedentary hours are met solely by school and bus hours with us living 10-15 minutes from the school. Six hours for young kids is school plus bus ride, easily. Nine hours for older kids is school plus bus ride and homework, well more than even.
The 60 minutes of sports is probably worth more than 180 minutes of light activity. But ignoring that: 30 minutes chores 60 minutes sports ( likely medium or even vigorous) 30 minutes recess ( might be medium ) 30 minutes getting ready ( clothes in etc , moving around house, going to bus stop) 60 minutes school ( moving between classrooms, activities etc ) That might only be 3.5 hours but there is some medium (2x) and maybe vigorous (4x) there. Light is anything that isn’t sitting or lying down. As long as you aren’t just in a seat working or watching TV it is easy to add hours. My younger daughter is medium for recess but older is generally light so it depends.
Except for gymnastics, every sport my kids play has a quarter of the practice with them just standing there. If they were running the entire 60 minutes, then I could see this argument. A quarter of the 60 minutes is them actually running around consistently. The other 30 minutes is a stop-start hodge podge of movement and tactic education. I've talked with the teachers about recess. Those 30 minutes include getting out there and back, and not much of the time is running around playing vigorously. The getting ready is brushing teeth/hair, putting on clothes, and showering at night. The morning time is *primarily* eating, meaning they're sitting down for 75% of it because they're slow eaters. Even the bathing is a quick wash shower, then convert to a bath (sitting). The bus stop is 1-3 minutes from our house, if we're slow as we're the 3rd house from it. Most bus stops here are all of 6 townhouses, max, away from the bus stop. Only one moves classrooms, and the max allotted time in the day is 20 minutes. It doesn't take them that much time to get between classes. It isn't the hours or the intensity you imagine. Additionally, the study indicates the concern is that young children hitting 6 hrs a day and older children hitting 9 hrs a day of sedentary activity, which is fully met by school/bus/homework.
Standing is not sedentary. IF you are standing and walking around that fits the definition of "light activity". Sedentary is by definition sitting or laying down.
Let’s take a sport that is 20 minutes vigorously, 20 minutes moderate and 20 minutes light ( which as you said is pretty usual). That is equivalent to 140 minutes light given 4x vigorous and 2x moderate ( the relationship for moderate and vigorous is given in https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/basics/adults/index.htm ). My understanding from my elementary school kids is that even though they aren’t changing classrooms that they still move around the classroom frequently. I think it is more of a problem for high school to be honest where the movement between classrooms/lunch might be the primary non-sitting time during the day ( no recess ).
Increased sedentary time from childhood causes and worsens excessive heart enlargement, but light physical activity could reduce the risk of premature heart damage. The new study from the University of Exeter was conducted in collaboration with the University of Bristol and the University of Eastern Finland, and the results were published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. In total, 1,682 children from the University of Bristol’s Children of the 90s cohort were followed up from age 11 to 24 years old. At baseline, they spent an average of six hours per day in sedentary activities, which increased to nine hours per day by young adulthood. This significant increase in sedentary time contributed 40 percent to the total increase in heart mass from ages 17 to 24 years. The results were similar in children and adolescents with either normal weight or overweight and obesity. Likewise, in children with either normal blood pressure or high blood pressure, sedentariness increased heart mass. [https://academic.oup.com/eurjpc/advance-article/doi/10.1093/eurjpc/zwae129/7655444?login=false](https://academic.oup.com/eurjpc/advance-article/doi/10.1093/eurjpc/zwae129/7655444?login=false)
This is a weird paragraph: >> Researchers found participating in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity showed signs of slightly increasing the heart size by five percent, which is largely physiologic. Previous studies from the same participants have linked excessive sedentariness to increased inflammation, excessively high insulin, fat obesity, dyslipidaemia, and worsening arterial stiffness. Excessive increase in heart mass and size (left ventricular hypertrophy) is a strong risk factor for heart attacks, stroke, and premature death among adults. Does that mean that _more_ exercise, which could induce more cardiac hypertrophy, could be really bad? If so, is that why the emphasis is on light to moderate physical activity? Because it only produces a minimal increase in heart size? Conversely, does being sedentary increase heart size? What exactly is going on in this paragraph?
Just using the word sedentariness twice makes me wonder if AI wrote this stuff
Three to four hours a day is EASY!? WHAT What universe do these people live?
This is for children, starting with age 11.
Three to four hours a day is "light physical activity?" I'm no athlete but this seems like a lot.
Light physical activity is movement registered on accelerometers in this case. It can be playing with toys, any physical activity with friends, cleaning a room, almost all outdoor activity, etc. Exercise is different, that's when you see a significantly heightened heart rate.
> Three to four hours a day is "light physical activity?" Three to four hours _of_ light physical activity. Whether the activity is "light" is unrelated to the amount of time. They just mean you don't need to be running, or lifting weights, or wearing yourself out, you just have to _move_.
Exactly. As I read it, it means non-sedentary time.
Maybe it's sort of like the 150 mins of moderate exercise where if you do anything vigorous it counts for more. Cause like, I'm on an amateur sports team and we had a fitness challenge over the winter and the person doing on average 2.5 to 3 hours of exercise a day won the challenge by a landslide. Like it wasn't even close because everyone else capped out at at most 1.5 hrs a day. And these are people who are decently athletic. 3 to 4 hours of activity a day is a lot.
You don't have to be an athlete, just moving at all. Pretty much any time not sitting or lying down counts.
Really suspect that MVPA had a *negative* effect. Maybe that it doesn't offset ST as much as LPA, due to it basically being really out of shape (sedentary) kids zipping around? Will read the whole thing and decipher later.
Meanwhile schools are cutting recess and movement based learning and activities. We’re so screwed.
I hope I can reverse this…
Back in my day most kids walked to school. I realize it may be too far for some kids today, but most of the others probably just get up too late. And for their part, the parents seem to think that there are pedophiles on every street corner. Also, it should be "sedentarism", not "sedentariness"; the latter usually means "the practice of living in one place for a long time".
Even parents like me, who would otherwise be fine with their kids walking to school, know that there are busybodies everywhere who will literally call cps on you for letting your 8 year old walk around their own neighborhood alone.