Inactive children? Not around here...

[sylvia_rachel]

So, SP is participating in a study on the activity levels of Canadian children and youth (ages 5 to 19), for which purpose she has to wear a pedometer for a week and record the number of steps it says she's taken each day. (It's a very clever pedometer, with a failsafe string thingy and a cover that prevents you from pressing the "reset" button

Comments

[anonymous]

Good for her! And you, she is active and that'll be sohealthy later in life!!

(I agree it'll probably be discounted from the study though ... :( )

-- Jeannie

[sylvia_rachel]

It's amazing how much exercise you get just from not having a car. (B"H we are all healthy and able to do lots of walking, so we have that option.)

[anonymous]

Sounds like she's living the way all kids should!! You's a good mama. :-)

Ahh, Toronto salt. Was thinking of it the other day while wearing a favourite pair of leather boots and remembering how I had to get hideous vinyl ones when I was in T.O. because the salt ruined all footwear, regardless of treatments. Yuck.

Stay warm!!

xoxo
to

[sylvia_rachel]

Of course, now she's home from school because she says she feels like barfing. I suspect either too much pool water ingested last night or unhappiness about prospect of spelling test given by supply teacher (that's Ontarian for "sub").

[kiwano]

Knowing as many other kids as I do who actually get enough physical activity, I have a suspicion that instead of SP being dismissed as an outlier, the distribution of step counts will actually end up being bimodal. My cynicism lies instead in the suspicion that once this distribution is discovered, the researchers conducting the survey will want to look at what sort of lifestyle/parenting factors seem to correspond to children belonging to one distribution or the other, but there won't be any funding available for that.

[sylvia_rachel]

Mmm, I hadn't thought of that possibility.

There was a structured interview component as well, in which we discussed things like does kid play organized sports (no), does kid watch TV between school and dinner (not usually -- strangely, they did not ask about *after* dinner. Why?), how does kid get to school (bus, sometimes walking), etc.

I'm waiting for someone to discover that kids who play organized sports actually are less active than those who don't but who get to play outside a lot ...

[kiwano]

Or at least that participation in organized sports only corresponds to an increase in physical activity that is directly attributable to the sport itself. I think that the loss in activity among the organized sports crowd (vs. the play outside a lot crowd) is something that mainly kicks in when they grow up, and are faced with the choice of either helping to run an adult team/league in order to keep playing their sport of choice, or just watching the professional league play said same sport. Opportunities to just play outside (or to get around by walking/biking, or...) don't seem to go away in the same manner.

[sylvia_rachel]

Well, yes, that too. But what I was thinking about was the difference for kids between playing, say, competitive soccer (and I'm using soccer as an example because it's the best-case team sport: way less time spent putting on equipment than hockey or lacrosse or football, way less time standing around doing bugger all than softball) and just running around outside playing with your friends, undirected by adults. In the first case you are probably driven to your practices and games; you get to play only when the coach says you do; at practices, you may spend quite a bit more time drilling particular skills than actually running around and thus exercising your whole body. And the more time you're spending at soccer practice, the less time you're spending doing anything else

[pompier]

We've had about 15cms (45 inches?) of snow, as of late - and private people aren't allowed to use salt, it's only permitted on main roads. This leads to slippery sidewalks and streets - last year, many elderly people were nearabout trapped in their apartments as they didn't dare to go outside on the ice...

You mentioning London reminds me of Ottawa: I went to the Parliament building with my group, aiming to see the son-et-lumière-show, and a nice lady asked us if we were local. "Um, no, where do you wanna go?" "Parliament building - just go with us?" "Ah, thanks. Where are you from?" "Berlin, Germany! - You?" "London" "Great Britain?" "No, Ontaria." :) We were very amused!

[sylvia_rachel]

Hee

[pompier]

I remember driving into ... what was it, I think Québec? And there was this huuuuge area outside the city, complete bare, and our (originally German) tourguide explained that this was the place where the snow was stored several meters high during wintertime. o.O

My granny uses sand or ashes, after the sidewalk has been sweeped clean. Still works the best. ;-)

[sylvia_rachel]

Kitty litter! :D