Addressing the long-standing issue of childhood obesity

I read some recurring news in several media outlets this week that is a little disturbing. I have read about this problem for several decades, and this week reports indicate that the problem is still around. The news stated that, “7 out of 10 young adults are not fit for any military duty.” The lack of physical condition for the majority of youth that prevents them from qualifying to serve in the armed forces has been present for several decades now. And the point of not being fit for military service is not limited to that occupation. Talking with police officers, fire department personnel, construction owners, and most jobs that require some sort of physical condition, are experiencing problems with getting people that are capable of working. 

My first year in San Marcos I joined up with Jay Horton to teach a summer gymnastics class for youngsters. We called ourselves the "Mat Masters." We had a high bar, parallel bars, rings, mats, and a trampoline for the classes. We had problems with the students in the class starting on the first day. On the high bar it is imperative to be able to get up on the bar. The students could not do one chin up and just hung on the bar. They could not lift their legs up to reach over the bar. We had to pass on using the high bar. The parallel bars were next. The students could not do a dip (support themselves and then bend the arms and straighten the arm out). We tried to see if they could do a push up on the bars as a lead up to doing parallel bar dips. They failed at that also. The rings were a total loss, as even after we lifted the students up on the rings, they could not support themselves and came down to hanging on the rings. There was no arm and shoulder or abdominal strength to do any apparatus in gymnastics. The remainder of the summer was spent on the mats doing somersaults and jumping on the trampoline. 

I was helping an elementary physical education teacher record some of her fitness scores from the physical fitness test. I noticed on the chin up exercise scores of 8, 7, 15, etc. and one 20. I thought that was very good that these students could do that many chin ups. She explained, “Those are not chin up scores. Those are the number of seconds that a student can hang on a bar with bent arms.” The students could only hang on the bar a few seconds before dropping down. The chin up scores on average were less than 1. In other words, most scores were zero. The way to correct that problem was to not do chin ups anymore on physical fitness tests. I was taught to do a push up by lowering a rigid body down until your chest hit the floor and then return to a straight arm position. If you have an opportunity to see the versions of a push up today you might not recognize it. It is more of a head bobbing exercise with very little arm bend to do a push up.

These examples were from almost 40 years ago. And I am still reading about how youngsters today are still in poor physical condition. I am old enough that all the technology that is present today was not even invented yet – other than in Dick Tracy comic strips – and for the early years we did not even have a television set. Our free time was spent climbing trees, riding bikes, running games, playing all kinds of versions of baseball and football with as few as four kids. When television sets started to make an appearance in the neighborhood the number of kids seemed to disappear. Instead of being outside and playing they were now inside watching Howdy Doody and Captain Kangaroo. The fortunate thing that delayed a sharp decline in fitness was that we still had daily physical education classes all the way through the 12th grade. Most kids still went out for one or more sports that the school offered. Our coach said that if you want to play football, you need to go out for track. That is where my running career started. Any event from 440 yards on down, including hurdles (both high and low), and relays were all part of my routine. I thought any athlete that ran around that track more than once was a little crazy. I ran longer distances slow for other sports, but not as an event in a track meet.

I started thinking about youth fitness when my son was in the sixth grade. I would drive over to the school to pick him up and noticed that over half of the students coming out of the doors outweighed me. I was talking with Dr. Randy Rogers at a function one day. He mentioned that he was now seeing students in junior high school coming into his office with indications of pre-diabetes. This was over 20 years ago and youth fitness was beginning to have health problems. A physical education teacher once told me that out of 25 overweight or obese children, 24 of them would be overweight or obese adults. Looking at present day statistics that show our population as 67% obese and overweight, it seems that what he told me years ago is turning out to be true. The other disturbing part of that statistic is that obesity is now the greater portion of that 67 percent. It used to be overweight was more prevalent. Now being obese is the greater number. And it is apparent that our poor physical condition is now one of the reasons for an increase in health problems today. 

The information about the benefits of running, or any physical activity, as one of the best sources for good health is reported regularly. It just needs to be followed. Time to start moving again.