AdventureDad

I like to believe that people, especially parents, are getting smarter but it's just not the case.  The latest fitness trend in UK has parents taking their babies and toddlers to the gym on a regular basis. Parents seem to think this a great idea to keep their kids from getting obese, apparently one in five UK kids under 11 are obese today.  The idea of going to the gym, it's actually just a "play class", is great for social interaction but completely worthless in preventing obesity.  How desperate and clueless are todays parents?

It's unfair to give the "gym" in question, The Little Gym, shit for arranging play session for kids.  Unless they are specifically claiming to help preventing obesity of course.  We've been to Little Gym classes here in Sweden and it's always been a great time.  It's nice for the kids and parents to meet others, socially interact, and play some games.  The issue of connecting these play session to obesity has never come up. And probably never will. Obesity is not  a problem here, you'll struggle to even see obese adults, but parents in general are also smart and educated enough to know obesity is mostly about eating habits.  Not about dragging their 5 month old around the gym.

How can you prevent your kid from getting obese?  It's not difficult.  You give them reasonably good food, let them spend plenty of time outside, and  have them play around with friends.  That's it.  A good start might also be believing in accountability. It's a parental responsibility to make sure your child eats well and moves around.  It's not the duty of a gym, school, grandparents, friends, or neighbors.  This is apparently the most difficult part, to make a parent feel responsible.

Eating "reasonably good food" doesn't mean salads and Evian.  It means a decent diet of different foods and a fairly low sugar intake. Most parents probably go wrong here.  There is no need for a three year old to have Coke  or sugary juices in the sippy cup 12 hours a day. Or eating chips or donuts for snacks throughout the day.

What's horribly underrated  seems to be exercising through normal playing with friends.  I'm stunned how "normal" young kids can be obese.  Don't they run around and play  both at home and at day-care/school?  Our almost four year old son spends an average of at least 5 hours outside ever day.  Summer and winter.  He's outside half day (or sometimes the whole day) at day-care and also likes  playing around in parks or on the snowy slopes after day-care.  Obesity is not a problem, giving him enough food to even gain weight is sometimes a challenge since he, and most other kids here, are so active.  

The idea of having outside sources like Little Gym take care of parental problems is nothing new.  I find this especially common in Latin countries.  Kids, mainly young upper class kids, don't play with friends.  Instead their parents schedule a mountain of different classes  with instructors throughout the week.  Two hours playing around with friends is deemed worthless and a waste of time.  Two hours with a clueless instructor is considered fantastic.  

The Little gym is a great place to meet other parents and kids for a little fun.  For us it's nothing different than going to a pool or a sandbox, it's innocent fun and no one talks about the kids "exercising".  They are simply having fun with other kids their age.

Obesity, especially in UK and U.S. is already a huge problem and it's just getting worse.  To me, teaching people some simple things about food and exercise seems like a great solution.  A one hour session would be enough.  Taking a toddler to the gym, not to have fun but to exercise, doesn't seem to be a good long term solution. 

Categories: Kid stuff, Parenting, Rant, School
Tags: obesity, Parenting