So many articles on overweight/out-of-shape children popped up on my Google alerts yesterday that I have to post about it.  Not that I don’t want to, you know.

The kids in Sacramento are terribly unfit, and getting less fit by the year.  The Sacramento Bee article linked to above does a good job of showing how most “physical fitness” data ignores socioeconomic data.  It’s essential that we start putting these things together, to be able to see the bigger picture.

You see, poor kids are typically less fit than kids from more wealthy families.

One of the schools mentioned also had to reduce the presence of their “physical fitness specialist” from five days per week, to two days per week.  I’m sure that kind of thing is happening all over the country.  “PE” isn’t valued in our culture.

Great Britain is experiencing the same symptoms.  The article says, though, tat the biggest cause is a lack of regular physical activity by the children.  Sounds good.  Again, though, it’s only part of the argument.

This recent article in Scientific American points out how being in nature or in a natural setting not only reduces stress markers, but also creates value change in the people involved.

Out in the Wild, people naturally become more “other-focused,” and less “self-focused.”  Further, our motivational drive switches from an extrinsic drive, to a more intrinsic drive.

In all of these articles, though, where are the parents?

I mean, why aren’t fingers being pointed?  And pointed where they should be?

Socioeconomic status notwithstanding, parents play a huge role in getting their kids active, and into nature.

I suppose what I’m saying is this – we always look for the “cause” in the immediate present.  But those things are just symptoms.

What happened in the parents’ generation that has led them to care less about physical activity and nature?  Or at least, to be less involved in those things, or have their kids less involved?

What happened back then?  Treat the cause, not the symptom…