Written
by Pat Lyons, co-author of Great
Shape: The First Fitness Guide For Large Women (by
Pat Lyons & Debby Burgard) and shared here with her
permission.
If you think of yourself
as a couch potato, look around -- there are spuds of all
sizes lounging right there with you. While some other
societies dance through life as a matter of course, the
American life-style is much more sedentary, emphasizing a
service economy in the workplace and gadgets and
convenience at home. The result is a powerful cultural
barrier to activity. Where once fifty percent of American
labor involved vigorous physical activity, it now is
estimated that only two percent of American Adults get
adequate amounts of exercise for health in their jobs. A
1986 Department of Health and Human Services report
estimated that only "ten to twenty percent of adult
Americans engage in the kind of regular exercise most
likely to ensure cardiovascular fitness." As a
nation we spend our workday sitting -- at desks, in cars,
in classrooms -- and spend much of our recreation time
this way as well, watching sports or watching our
children play rather than playing ourselves.
Our children are much
less active now too, however. While in the fifties our
mothers used to beg us to come in from playing outside
when it was dark, mothers now have to beg their kids to
turn off the television and go outside to play. It is
estimated that the average American teenager will have
spent more than twenty-two thousand hours in front of a
television by the time she graduates from high school. As
a nation we have become watchers, not doers, with the
remote control TV switch the symbol of our transformation
into couch potatoes.
Research by sport
sociologist Susan Greendorfer and others shows that adult
women who are active in sports received strong family
encouragement when they were young and physical activity
was a regular part of family interactions. While school
plays an important role in encouraging sports
participation for boys, this has not been found to be
true for girls. In other words, if our daughters are
going to be able to dance or belt a softball into the
outfield, as parents we must encourage their early
participation and not think the schools are taking care
of that task for us.
Children who are not
encouraged to dance or play physically demanding games
and sports never adequately learn skills of physical
coordination; their reflexes do not develop to their
fullest capacity, and their confidence in their body's
ability to bring them joy is not firmly established. If
they are ridiculed for being fat or for any lack of
innate ability, either by peers, teachers, or parents,
they will carry this scar with them, making participation
in adulthood even more difficult.
In childhood we are not
only at our highest level of physical energy but also at
our lowest level of physical fear, unless we have been
taught to be afraid. Young children are not usually
afraid of hurting or embarrassing themselves. They will
repeat the same action dozens of times in order to get it
right because they don't have adult inhibitions about
making mistakes and because repetition is often just
another word for playing. Children are open and ready to
try new challenges because risks seem like no big deal.
As we get older, and
particularly as adults, we become afraid of breaking a
leg, splitting our pants, looking foolish or clumsy, or
otherwise damaging our bodies or our dignity. Too often
we then decide on the "safe" course of not
trying at all. Therefore, the best favor you can do the
children in your life is to intervene early in sedentary
patterns and encourage them to experiment and challenge
themselves in dance, sports, and games that help them
learn to trust their bodies. Participating with them in
physically active family outings will benefit everyone.
And if they take physical education in school be sure
that their teachers understand you expect them to treat
your child with respect regardless of size or abilities.
There is nothing quite
like a childhood memory of exhilaration and
accomplishment to get an adult off the couch and back
into the world of physical play. If you never had a
chance to play sports and games as a child, however, now
is the time to begin. In the immortal words of a
California T-shirt: IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO
HAVE
Our children are much
less active now too, however. While in the fifties our
mothers used to beg us to come in from playing outside
when it was dark, mothers now have to beg their kids to
turn off the television and go outside to play. It is
estimated that the average American teenager will have
spent more than twenty-two thousand hours in front of a
television by the time she graduates from high school. As
a nation we have become watchers, not doers, with the
remote control TV switch the symbol of our transformation
into couch potatoes.
Research by sport
sociologist Susan Greendorfer and others shows that adult
women who are active in sports received strong family
encouragement when they were young and physical activity
was a regular part of family interactions. While school
plays an important role in encouraging sports
participation for boys, this has not been found to be
true for girls. In other words, if our daughters are
going to be able to dance or belt a softball into the
outfield, as parents we must encourage their early
participation and not think the schools are taking care
of that task for us.
Children who are not
encouraged to dance or play physically demanding games
and sports never adequately learn skills of physical
coordination; their reflexes do not develop to their
fullest capacity, and their confidence in their body's
ability to bring them joy is not firmly established. If
they are ridiculed for being fat or for any lack of
innate ability, either by peers, teachers, or parents,
they will carry this scar with them, making participation
in adulthood even more difficult.
In childhood we are not
only at our highest level of physical energy but also at
our lowest level of physical fear, unless we have been
taught to be afraid. Young children are not usually
afraid of hurting or embarrassing themselves. They will
repeat the same action dozens of times in order to get it
right because they don't have adult inhibitions about
making mistakes and because repetition is often just
another word for playing. Children are open and ready to
try new challenges because risks seem like no big deal.
As we get older, and
particularly as adults, we become afraid of breaking a
leg, splitting our pants, looking foolish or clumsy, or
otherwise damaging our bodies or our dignity. Too often
we then decide on the "safe" course of not
trying at all. Therefore, the best favor you can do the
children in your life is to intervene early in sedentary
patterns and encourage them to experiment and challenge
themselves in dance, sports, and games that help them
learn to trust their bodies. Participating with them in
physically active family outings will benefit everyone.
And if they take physical education in school be sure
that their teachers understand you expect them to treat
your child with respect regardless of size or abilities.
