Sitting at a table in any fast food restaurant in the United States Virgin islands or observing schoolchildren ambulating in Road Town will reveal that today’s child is fatter, less fit and generally unhealthier than his or her predecessors who were born in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.
Last month, Richard Alleyne, a Telegraph science correspondent, published an article on modern Britain’s new generation of weaklings: boys and girls brought up on a diet of computer games while a British education establishment has curtailed the rough and tumble of outdoor play with a myriad of health and safety rules antithetical to their physical welfare.
This is a paradigm aided by a contemporary digital lifestyle that has been made exponentially easier and more convenient by modern science and technology and a host of products, appliances and devices.
Truth be told, this territory is probably no different. Still, it is a good thing that the VI appears to have delayed the onslaught of the fast food culture that is the modus vivendi in the US. And yes, we have excellent facilities for sports, and great opportunities that allow our children the best of the outdoor life: swimming, sailing, soccer, cricket, softball, basketball and more. Most primary schools have physical education programmes. Kudos, then, to a VI education establishment that has placed child physical welfare and well-being at the top of its priorities. Still, too many of our children are falling through the cracks in this area.
‘Traditional activities’
In Britain, Mr. Alleyne describes a shift away from traditional activities like climbing trees, scrambling up ropes, and swinging across wall bars, that has made today’s children physically weaker than their counterparts a decade ago, who thrived on outdoor physical activity. Today’s 10-year-old is unable to do as many sit-ups, is less able to hang from wall bars or cross-poles, and is less muscular than a child of the same age in the 1990s.
Encouraging children to be themselves will boost their strength in many cases: letting them climb trees, skip rope, run around the field with a ball, ride bicycles, or scramble up a tree with the aid of a thick rope tied to the treetop. Such activities are excellent for good health. But it appears that we live in an age that attempts to trap our children indoors for fear of something terrible happening to them if we let them out of our sight. This is sad, and very unhealthy.
In Britain, the number of sit-ups the average 10-year-old can do declined by 27.1 percent between 1998 and 2008; arm strength fell by 26 percent; and grip strength by seven percent. And twice as many children — one in 10 — could not hold their own weight when hanging from wall bars.
I suspect the same is happening in the US — maybe even worse.
Lessons
The lesson for the VI is that we must not allow the British example to become the norm here. And parents should do everything in their power to create healthy outdoor play in the life of their children. In the US, the problem of childhood obesity appears even more pronounced. There, obese children are getting chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure, something that was virtually unheard of in previous generations. The tragedy is that health experts in the US fear that children of today’s generation may be the first who live a shorter life than their parents and grandparents.