Strollerderby : walking

Do Your Kids Walk To School?

Brett Singer — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:10:00 GMT

You know the old joke about how your parents walked to school. Up hill. Both ways. In a snowstorm. (Even in summer.) While being chased by a tiger. A really hungry tiger. (I added the part about the tiger.)

Well, with child obesity rates on the rise, maybe it's time to pull that old chestnut out of mothballs.

What prompted all this? Well, April 8 is National Start! Walking Day, sponsored by the American Heart Association. (Oh, don't pretend like you didn't already know.)

Over at SuperEco, Frank Paynter says that while many of us old folks used to walk to school, our children are catching a ride. Frank points to an article on Yahoo! Green by Jeff Yeager that says only 30 percent of today's rug rats stroll their way to the hallowed halls of learning.

Frank wonders when the move from bikes to the minivan began: "Some people cite safety concerns, but the chance that a child will be injured in a car accident are astronomically higher than that he will encounter evil doers out to sell him into child slavery on a chocolate plantation or something." He's probably right, at least statistically. But parental fear is a very real thing, whether reasonable or not. There are plenty of things I did as a young'un that I have trouble letting my kid do, like go to corner store. Part of that is where we live (New York City), but part of it is simply that societal attitudes have changed.

As for walking to school, sometimes it simply isn't realistic. For example, I lived in the Bronx and went to school in Manhattan. Taking the subway (2 of them) took about an hour. Walking was not going to happen. My son is too young to walk, and we also live a little bit too far away from his school. So it’s a good idea, and I like talking about it, but he's going to have to get his exercise some other way.

Since The American Heart Association was kind enough to set the Start! Walking Day start date in the spring, I may join in. Not my son -- he takes the bus. But I'll start walking when I go to pick him up. Frankly, I need the exercise more than he does. At least he gets recess.

So let me ask you folks -- do your children walk to school? Did you?

Image/Source: SuperEco

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Weekly Check-Up: Five Ways to Exercise With Kids

Kelly Mills — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:29:00 GMT

With all the news reports about childhood obesity and the sedentary lifestyles of kids, there's usually some plug for getting your kids off the couch and into some form of physical activity. This has not been a problem (so far) at my house, because I have a highly active child. My theory as to why? Exercise is a huge part of our family life. I report this without righteousness because for most of my life, I avoided physical activity, and thought I was a total shlump. It wasn't until after my child was born that I fell in love with fitness. Now here's five ways we work physical activity into our lives.

1. Take the baby out. I started my fitness endeavors in a simple way: My infant cried unless the person holding her was moving. So I was forced from the get-go to put her in a front pack and walk outside. I started opting for hills on my walks, and eventually graduated to running with her in a jogging stroller. Basically her colicky nature helped get me fit.

2. Be your own mode of transportation. When my child went to daycare, I put her in the stroller and ran the two miles to the sitter's house. Then I ran home. For preschool I put her in a bike trailer and rode ten miles to school, then a few more to get to work. Yep, this meant I had to get up extra early, I had to change in the bathroom at my job, and I was kinda sweaty at my desk. You know what? Still worth it, because it made me active.

3. Tag-team. When the kid was old enough to go to the park on weekends, my partner and I would bring her to a park with a track. He'd hang with her for a while so I could do laps, then it would be his turn. When I played with my daughter I'd do sprints--also known as "tag"--and give her piggyback rides and wrestle in the grass. Beats a thighmaster session any day. You can also work this deal out with another parent if your partner isn't on board.

4. Shared sports. My partner enrolled my child in the same martial art he enjoys, and now coaches the kids' class. He reports that coaching can be a good way to participate and improve in an activity yourself. I've also taken classes that met at the same time as some class my kid was enrolled in. It's a good way to share the love of a pursuit. I even bring her to the gym I work at from time to time and we mess around with the "toys" there. We have a pull up bar in our doorway we all use, and she practices on the monkey bars at school too. Her pull ups are way better than mine.

5. Dance party. My personal favorite workout is when the kid and I put on music and do some very graceless and athletic dancing around the living room. After thirty minutes, I'm sweaty. Good times.

Link to Childhood Obesity #452

Madeline Holler — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 16:40:00 GMT

Here’s another reason our kids are little fatties: the daily ride to school in the mini-van. Only about 15 percent of all kids walk to school these days, whereas 40 years ago, back when "obesity" wasn't a word and fat kids were “husky,” half of all kids either rode their bikes or hoofed it to class.

The group behind Walk to School Day hopes that on Oct. 3 all school-age children will step down from the swiveling captains chairs, step up to the sidewalk and go. Leaders of the group want communities to demand safer streets for walkers and more bike paths. And they want parents to know walking to school is not such a bad thing.

Agreed! Plan to join in? We won’t.

I drive my daughter to school everyday not because we’re lazy, not because she couldn’t handle traffic, not because I’m scared of bus safety. I drive because she doesn’t attend her crappy neighborhood school. She goes to one we like better downtown.

While the school walking group has great intentions – and I hope many people take advantage of it – I think a huge reason not dealt with in this New York Times article about walking to school is the inconsistent quality of the neighborhood schools for many cities. My guess is we’re not the only family giving up walking for better school options that happen to be far away.

What’s your reason for driving your kid to school? You can admit it if it’s just easier to drive. Or do you walk? How long does it take? Do you feel like the exercise makes your kid a more focused student, especially in the morning, as the experts in this article claim?

Remember When Kids Used to Walk to School?

Karen Murphy — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 11:34:00 GMT

When I was a kid back in, oh, that year back then, I had to walk to school. Both ways. In the ~~snow~~ sunshine (hey, it was California) and the rain (northern California). Everybody walked to school. I got a ride home once, though. It was the day I broke my arm. Even on crutches (accident-prone) in middle school I simply strapped them to my bike. It was no big deal. Nobody thought so. It was just what you did.

So a semi-new study of 7400 parents across the U.S. indicates that kids don't walk or ride their bikes much to school anymore, even when it's less than a mile away. In 1969, 90% did, but now it's less than half. What's up with that?

And when the distance is more than a mile, the numbers are even lower. Where I live, all the kids ride the bus except those who are driven to school, because it's semi-rural and nothing's close enough for safe or feasible walking. But I was amazed a few years ago when I lived in a town that was quite walkable yet still it seemed that few kids walked. I lived next door to an elementary school (and ironically drove my kids to a private school 20 miles away) and routinely saw a family who lived down the street dropping their kids off by car. What, they couldn't walk up a residential hill?

There's quite a bit of conjecture about the cause of this huge drop in walkership in schoolkids: two-working-parent families who find it handy to drop the kids at school or a lack of sidewalks or walkable conditions in newer communities. But one thing is clear, and that's that there is a concern that kids who don't even walk a few blocks to school and back are getting practically zero exercise at all. Which means we're back to worrying about the fattening of kids.

A Toddler at Six Months?

Patti — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 13:20:00 GMT

Poor Connie Robinson. The English mama probably thought she had a few more months of precious, peaceful immobility, but her son Reuben had other ideas. After starting to crawl at four months, Reuben's already walking at six months old. Six. Freaking. Months. Old!

Reuben's big sister Yazmin was an early walker too, but she had the generosity of spirit to wait until she was nine months old, at least.

I have personal sympathy for Connie--my now-four-year-old was crawling and cruising the furniture at six months, although she didn't feel like letting go of the coffee table until she was nearly one. Still, she was able to get anywhere (and anything) she wanted, and it was wayyyyy too soon for my tastes. But Connie's taking Reuben's strides in stride, and enjoying his status as the playgroup superstar.

According to experts, about half of babies walk by the age of one, with a few walking sooner and most catching up by 18 months. Reuben's a little extraordinary.