Who are all these children that exercise for 60 minutes a day?

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I was reading an article today that there has been a decline in the number of children and teens who exercise for the recommended 60 minutes per day - no surprise there! But what was surprising is that research from Sports England shows that normally over 50 per cent of children do get 60 min of exercise per day, and even now, during the pandemic, it’s still over 50 per cent.

I was quite surprised by that research. It made me think that lots of people must be overestimating how much exercise their children get. In normal times, yes, I guess lots of primary school kids run around in the playground and walk to school, but now?

My dd is 14 and among her friends there is only one that actively exercises. All the other ones might go for a short walk if that. Even my dd who is really sporty is not getting 60 min daily at the moment. She spends all day doing school work and then homework in her room. She does go for a run most days but that’s only 30 min and she is literally sitting around for the rest of the time.

DH or I take my two for a walk almost without fail every day because they’re unbearable without it. We probably go out for about 90 minutes. They’re 4 and 8.

My DC is very sporty, and still taking part online and in real life. I would say they are probably averaging 2 - 3 hours a day.

Depends what they class as exercise. Two of mine spend breaks playing chase and football and often jump around on the trampoline and we walk to and from school (pre-covid) and head to the park afterwards a few days a week, or go to a sports club, so could pretty easily.reach 60 mins of exercise.

My eldest is a calmer soul and would only get there if walking counted.

My dd1 dances for 8 hours a week, so that works out at over an hour a day though in reality it’s spread over fewer days. Any serious dancer would be doing that or more. So that would be some of the total.

My 9 year old does zoom gymnastic lessons 5.5 hours a week, outside of covid she was training 11hours plus a week

Mine easily gets 60 mins a day but she never stops moving. Today she's cycled 9km and done a 30min popsugar routine plus she's always jiggling about even when 'still'. It's very annoying.

However, it's part of her personality, we don't have any gaming stuff in this house nor do we have a TV. Apart from reading there's not a lot of sedentary stuff to do.

My ds . Most days we go to the park for an hour unless the weather is REALLY bad. He will cycle the paths or play football. On the rare occasion we dont do that he'll play in the garden with his football or scooter , usually in and out for most of the day and he joins in my work outs as well !
However I think you'll find a large disparity between 6 year old boys and 14 year old girls

Before lockdown my son would do the usual PE and dance lessons at school, football at lunchtime and then 2/12 hours training Monday, Tuesday, 90 mins on a Wednesday, Scouts on a Thursday then football on a Sunday so he would definitely get over an hour a day. He’d ride his bike or go swimming or teen gym on a Saturday often.

My other son not so much but I’d say still pretty close on most days.

Easily achievable if you have a garden, I’d say. Harder if you’re all stuck indoors in a flat trying to work full time.

Running around in the back garden playing games would be exercise too.

Younger children usually go for walks with parents/grandparents, play in the park, do PE at school. Not sure about teenagers but plenty of teens play sports in school and outside. I used to swim and go to the gym when I was around 16/17, wish I'd kept at it. I see plenty of teens out on forest walks with their parents at weekends too, which could last 2-3 hours.

@DarkDisquiet - what sort of exercise is it? That sounds impressive!

Since lockdown it’s impossible as they are online all day dits dark by the time they finish, all organised places are closed so we are limited mainly to the weekend.

In normal times mine 13 year old who I wouldn't consider particularly active (less than his older brother was anyway) would be cycling to and from school which presumably counts - so that's about 3.5 hours a week. Sports outside of school 5 hours. Plus school sport, and any other bits like outdoor activities with scouts. So comfortably more than an an hour a day on average.

Right now - virtually nothing

Daily walks, playing ball games in their break times, doing Joe Wicks. And not playing on tablets for fun when they could be outside.

I think it is harder with teens if they aren’t into sports.
My dc are 10 and under and we go out for an hour or so most days, the dc are either walking/scooting/riding a bike or running around, if there is a play area they will be climbing etc.
If we don’t go out anywhere, they run around the garden, do online yoga or Joe Wicks or a zoom session with their sports club, other times they set up obstacle courses or floor is lava courses around the house.

My 15 year old would normally be at the gym 3 times a week. Walks around 5 miles a day to and from school and goes mountain or road biking at least twice a week.
At the moment the gym is closed but he is still walking around 5 miles a day and biking at the weekends. He does weight training at home due to no gym and we have a stationary bike and a treadmill that he uses when the weather does not allow for outside activity.

I should clarify - my surprise is about the figures at the moment, not usual times when school and club sport is on. Usually my dd would do about 12 hours of strenuous training a week.

Most people I know with primary school age children are taking them for a walk/to the park every day or most days, so it doesn't surprise me that they are getting 60 minutes of exercise.
I expect it's much lower among secondary school children as most of them will have been used to doing their exercise at sports club and are more likely to be hibernating since lockdown. I think I know of only one of my DC's friends who is exercising regularly - and that's because she competed at a comparatively high level and wants to retain her fitness.

Mine runs but only for half an hour. Could go slower and do an hour but it is the same effort to go faster in half an hour. The weather is bad and they like to do other things, I suppose.

YANBU. During school holidays and weekends my two (12 and 15) get an hour or more of dog walking most days, but with online school at this time of year they start school work at 9:00 and by the time they finish it's getting dark, so they barely get any during the week.

DD(7) has a daily walk and apart from when she’s doing her schoolwork, is rarely still. She’s always bouncing around and doing handstands and she never walks when she can run 🙈

My 10 year old DD normally trains 4 hours a day 5 times a week for gymnastics. This has reduced to 2-3 hours a day on Zoom for lockdown but she also is walking between 4-8 km a day depending how much she can be bothered to do and how much gym she’s already done that day. Today so far she’s done 1 hour of gym and a 7km walk and she’s got another 1.5 hours of zoom gym at 5pm. She’s a machine though, I couldn’t do half as much as she manages!

Mine cycle everywhere, run a bit, kick a ball around at lunch, or we go for walks, and they like Joe Wickes and competitive fitness things on the wii too. They've been known to join in with my aerobics videos for a laugh. It amuses them how much better at it I am than them.

In normal times they are out and on their feet more, go swimming sometimes, do sporty things with their mates. Just normal teenagers.

I would class my SCs as getting an hour + exercise a day.

It might not always be structured but they literally never stop moving. Some of their Switch games are pretty active, and even playing a board game, the youngest in particular is rolling round the floor, getting up, sitting down....I imagine they both get several thousand steps a day even when they don't leave the house.