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Imagine if a majority of children actually participated in these athletic programs. Committed to physical fitness, had social lives with teammates and didn't ha

Imagine if a majority of children actually participated in these athletic programs. Committed to physical fitness, had social lives with teammates and didn't have health problems because they were over weight. Oh wait. Basically every first world country has an obesity epidemic.

mrep 8y ago
Anecdote, but a lot of the kids that did sports all through my high school stopped playing when they went to college and gained weight from what I guess was based on their passed eating habits with high activity. However, the ones who didn't do sports all through high school mostly lost weight. I'm not sure what the overall implications are of school athletic programs but I definitely don't think it is as black and white as you make it out to be.
- qplex 8y ago
  In my opinion school gym/sport classes can be very good at completely sucking the living joy out of exercise. Athleticism and sports should not be forced on kids. Let them run freely. Eg. Just look at all the "free" street sports such skateboarding, rollerblading, bmx, parkour and so on. It doesn't have to be dull, boring and super formalized.
  - mrep 8y ago
    Oh, totally. My friends and I played tons of games of pick up ultimate frisbee, basketball, and football. Those games were 10 times more fun than any formalized sport I did. There is 1 football game I especially look back to which happened after a massive rain storm. The entire field had like 2 inches of water perfectly spread across it which made it not too hard to run across but completely painless to dive and tackle on. You would be holding onto someone trying to bring them down while they would drag you across the surface just as if you were water skiing. So much fun!
  - watwut 8y ago
    Most kids don't do them. Most kids don't do them regularly even if they have a chance and do them freely. There are classes and trainers for parkour and bmx. Free parkour is quite often done by people who did gymnastics or similar sport as kids. Looking around me, there are many kids who enjoy formalized sport clubs they go to. It is not for everyone, but the idea that most find them dull is wrong.
    - qplex 8y ago
      Sure, I didn't mean that anything is intrinsically dull. In my experience, clubs outside schools are much better because the kids actually want to be there. However they often push some competitive agenda to the kids, especially when they become teenagers. Many quit at that point because they don't have the time or motivation for it, and there very few clubs that only do "fun amateur league" at that age.

mrep 8y ago

Anecdote, but a lot of the kids that did sports all through my high school stopped playing when they went to college and gained weight from what I guess was based on their passed eating habits with high activity. However, the ones who didn't do sports all through high school mostly lost weight. I'm not sure what the overall implications are of school athletic programs but I definitely don't think it is as black and white as you make it out to be.

qplex 8y ago
In my opinion school gym/sport classes can be very good at completely sucking the living joy out of exercise. Athleticism and sports should not be forced on kids. Let them run freely. Eg. Just look at all the "free" street sports such skateboarding, rollerblading, bmx, parkour and so on. It doesn't have to be dull, boring and super formalized.
- mrep 8y ago
  Oh, totally. My friends and I played tons of games of pick up ultimate frisbee, basketball, and football. Those games were 10 times more fun than any formalized sport I did. There is 1 football game I especially look back to which happened after a massive rain storm. The entire field had like 2 inches of water perfectly spread across it which made it not too hard to run across but completely painless to dive and tackle on. You would be holding onto someone trying to bring them down while they would drag you across the surface just as if you were water skiing. So much fun!
- watwut 8y ago
  Most kids don't do them. Most kids don't do them regularly even if they have a chance and do them freely. There are classes and trainers for parkour and bmx. Free parkour is quite often done by people who did gymnastics or similar sport as kids. Looking around me, there are many kids who enjoy formalized sport clubs they go to. It is not for everyone, but the idea that most find them dull is wrong.
  - qplex 8y ago
    Sure, I didn't mean that anything is intrinsically dull. In my experience, clubs outside schools are much better because the kids actually want to be there. However they often push some competitive agenda to the kids, especially when they become teenagers. Many quit at that point because they don't have the time or motivation for it, and there very few clubs that only do "fun amateur league" at that age.