It sounds very impressive to say let’s make our new eco towns "fit towns" to tackle obesity, but many of these proposed 
facilities are already available.
While it makes sense to provide more cycle lanes and safer walking routes to and from school, at the end of the day it is up to parents to decide how their kids get to school – and many prefer to drive them for various reasons.
I live very close to a primary school and I know where the youngsters live who attend. Our village is safe for them to walk and cycle to school, but the kids are often driven there instead, and for very short distances. I find it inexplicable.
One reason may be because a lot of kids watch TV before going to school, and then there is a mad rush to fly out the door. Mums need to rush off to work too. It’s a lifestyle issue for many. Will it necessarily be any different if they live in an eco-town?
That’s why there needs to be more focus on schools, it’s no good crying over spilt milk about the hundreds of school playing fields that have been sold off in recent years.
Is there any reason why those schools with playing fields can’t have mandatory jogging sessions for kids? At least half-an-hour three times a week. And those schools without them could perhaps provide exercise bikes and rowing machines which classes could take it in turns to use. This is inexpensive equipment and easy to use; this equipment could be adapted so it is suitable for their younger bodies. These are simple measures that could be very effective. They can start instantly too.
It’s interesting that Health Secretary Alan Johnson is modelling his "fit towns" around similar French schemes. My neighbour who travels to France regularly has noticed how they provide "activity" areas for teenagers to use up excess energy, and they are well used, while we do nothing like this for our older children. Not in my area, anyway.
*If our government wants to know how to build an eco town, here is a perfect example being planned in Abu Dhabi, where the emirate aims to build the world’s first zero-carbon, zero-waste metropolis.
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I should think the problem with the jogging and exercise sessions you suggest is that somebody has to supervise them, Ellee, and teachers are already overstretched.
I agree that the condition of our well-being is a source of concern, especially when it comes to the slothful young. At the same time, the latent anarchist in me wants to ask what business is it of the state to try to control our lifestyles, as reprehensible as they might be. It’s ‘my’ choice to try to live as healtful a life as possible, and it would be ‘my’ choice to see that my children do. At times I think there is too much mutual masturbation by those in so-called charge who perhaps should be devoting their energies elsewhere rather than violating human freedom to choose. Whew. That’s my rant for today, Ellee.
I like the idea of cycle lanes – it’s not easy where I live to find places suitable for a family to cycle. I wonder if they could pave over the disused railways they trashed and provide cycle lanes?
Cambridge has lots of cycle lanes, it’s known as “cycle city”, but I don’t know if more kids cycle to school as a result.
Hi Elle,
certainly more sports, and I don’t mean optional sports – but classroom sports – where the whole classroom(s) go and run around the track for 20 or 30 minutes IS a good idea.
It would keep the school kids fitter, burn off bot only excess calories but excess energy too.
But with playing fields being sold off, and convenience or budgets dictating the school favours whichever ‘tean’ sport, or offer limited optional sports, seems highly unlikely.
Nice to see cycling days and cycling events, and most kids (of all ages) in Cambridge using a bike sometime during the day. But it always surprises me how little tennis is played by local children or visiting students & EFL students.
Fitness doesn’t mean ‘expensive’ gyms
Fitness can mean ‘aerobics’ in the park, for those who are no good at soccer & rugby, or whose parents fear for their children’s bones in contact sports.
But still each to their own. Some cycle, some swim, some skateboard, and others play to win.
Horses for courses, and courses for horses!
As for Abu Dhabi, is that a bit of clever PR spin.
One thing is building something from ‘scratch’
And another thing is including all the carbon spent in the transport of materials and construction into the total or final ‘footprint’
Whyever did they sell them off?
Q9 has sparked my memory – I hated sports at school; the PE teachers liked their blonde big bosomed tanned pets who were much shorter and nearer to the hockey sticks, they didn’t like me much and I disliked them.
I used to get up at 6am to either feed or ride my horses, then walk to school and back again to again feed and/or ride the horses. Later I enjoyed water skiing, windsurfing, rock climbing and swimming, snow skiing and cycling, badminton, racquet ball and tennis. I have never played hockey since, in the freezing cold, and never missed it, played rounders with something like a cricket ball that stung my fingers and never missed it, or played netball with little oh-so-gay dips of the ball into the air around the net, and never ever ever missed that.
I later walked Offa’s Dyke, went night walking most nights through local forest, climbed the Peak district, Snowdonia, the Lake district and walked the moors and the south Downs, backpacked and went to rallys on my motorbike and, for a time, danced the night away 5 nights a week. I was hoping for a commited and occasionally athletic love life but you can’t have everything! I’ve always wanted to try rowing but the nearest I got was crewing a yacht from the UK down to Lisbon where I jumped ship and found I didn’t have enough money to get home for the start of my final yr at Uni. But I hated games at school.
Philipa, I remember hockey and bruised, painful legs as I got swiped.
Schools don’t do enough to keep students fit.
Fit towns? Its not if you run around an oval etc. Its what you do in daily life that really effects “fitness”. Here (Aus) towns are built where we totally have to rely on the car, so there is very little walking done. SO combine this lack of general activity with a bad sugar filled diet and too much time on playstation/internet and you get FAT.
Why are there not so many fat people in Paris? because if you use the Metro you still are walking up and down stairs etc… there diet is quality and so they are thin….
[…] Ellee placed an interesting blog post on Lessons for fitness.Here’s a brief overview:It sounds very impressive to say let’s make our new eco towns “fit towns” to tackle obesity, but many of these proposed image facilities are already available. While it makes sense to provide more cycle lanes and safer walking routes to … […]
I quite agree Ellee – and very glad to meet you via my blog. How did you find me? Anyway I’m glad you did and will be calling back here to see you. Being hyperactive myself, I am unliveable with if I dont get enough exercise and see other children who are the same. One in particular doesn’t get enough exercise nor does he eat the right things and it’s very worrying to see what’s happening.
Flowerpot raises a good point – if I’m shut in the house and unable to get out and have exercise I’m very grumpy. Add to this the research in chemicals/E numbers in most convenience foods and it makes me question things like ADHD and depression. I know my children bounce off the walls if fed coca-cola, and isn’t there something like 6 teaspoons of sugar in one can of pop?
It is outrageous that playing fields have been sold off. I suppose it’s the modern idea that competitive sport can be bad for a child’s ego. If children play virtual rather than actual games, is it surprising that there’s an obesity problem?
Flowerpot, I remember visiting your site once before and seeing your link again recently. I’m glad we’ve hooked up.
“That’s why there needs to be more focus on schools, it’s no good crying over spilt milk about the hundreds of school playing fields that have been sold off in recent years”. 34000 in the last 20 years apparently. Many under the Conservatives.
I’m not sure about the idea of jogging sessions for school kids – my guess is that it would put most of them off any physical exercise whatsoever. Kids today have a much greater range of stimuli than they used to have and whatever is provided will need to be equally stimulating – jogging just won’t do it.
One of the things which has reduced exercise by kids has been the increase in the level of traffic – children just don’t roam as they used to because their parents don’t want to let them. When I was a kid – I thought nothing about walking over a mile to a football pitch where we organised our own game of football. It just doesn’t happen nowadays – kids can play football but where i live it is an organised activity and it costs, which I sure puts off a lot of people or at least restricts the degree of involvement. Why don’t councils/schools with playing fields place permanent wardens at play areas so people can leave their kids with some degree of confidence and some basic organisation – surely this would be cost effective expenditure in the long term.
Traffic free cycle paths are alos a very good idea – whenever a new one is opened in the UK it is usually very popular (with adults and kids). But we are way behind the Continent in the provision of such facilities
Hi Ellee
Jogging? We used to do that at school, except we called it ‘running around’.
xxx
Pants
[…] Do Blair and tennis go together? By Ellee You have to wonder if it is the same Tony Blair. Our premier of old whose government did nothing to save school playing fields from being sold off and promote their use for health and fitness, is now advocating tennis as a sport which notherners should participate in. […]