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

[Notcontent]

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.

15 year old - pre Covid did 10-12 hours a week across 3 different sports, plus school PE lessons on top. During lockdown 1, about 4 hours a week. Current lockdown about 2 hours a week. Motivation has dropped greatly. I can see it is necessary if school are closed, but cancelling junior sports has had a huge impact on development and self-esteem for so many, especially in sports with strict age grouping....some opportunities just won't come back.

The other thing is, if they are more studious than sporty they might not do that much outside of lockdown. School PE isn't an hour a day in secondary. I would've fitted into this camp when I started getting the bus rather than cycling 3 miles to school. I wanted to go to Uni so studying was my priority. We were recommended to do 2/ 2 and a half hours an evening at A Level.

Study that is.

I think this would vary massively depending on age of the child. I would think younger children would probably have hit this before breakfast as they never sit still, but hormonal teens are probably happier spending time playing video games or socialising on social media in their new-school time.

My eldest DC is 4, and easily gets more than an hour a day running, walking, riding his bike, running about in the park etc. Looking back on my own teen years, I walked 25 mins to and from school, but was never sporty and would never have chosen to do exercise for pleasure.

Dd14 goes for a run 5 times a week and horse rides 6 days a week at the moment. Dd18 goes for a walk most days and that's it. Normally they both play football and hockey at school.

March until October DS runs/football/frisbee 10 hours a day, we go on a walk every day in winter. DD gets very little exercise you'd think it was the opposite way as she is slim and he is chunky.

My two kids get a minimum of 60 mins outside, then they’re in the garden doing trampolining or joe wicks or chasing each other like mad kids. Some days their afternoon school is mainly fun exercise stuff outdoors. They are out so much More than me. I’m just in pjs working all day.

Lots of my pupils live on farms and during lockdown they are all out on the farms helping out. That's exercise and a lot of it tbh. Then there are all the kids who are doing their normal dance/gym classes online (nearly half of my form are still doing extra curriculars). And the ones who have a dog so they need to be walked and if the child is too young to be left at home alone they need to go on the dog walks which could easily be over an hour a day.

My own dd, on the other hand, has not left the house since Monday morning. I think she might have had an hour's exercise this week, possibly. Definitely not daily!!

Wow - my girls are older now, but in their teens (pre-lockdown) they were practically inert substances. It was an effort for them to move from lying down, never mind an hours exercise.

The funny thing is, I love to exercise, but that gene was not inherited!

Exhausteddog yes, state primary, 40 mins in total a day for both ways. Not unusual at all where we live. Except a lot of families drive instead of walking, but then get stuck in traffic and have to park a walk from the school anyway

I have one in yr6, one in yr 8, and I’m wfh. Both kids have different virtual class times and I have loads of meetings. We all go for a walk at the end of the school day, shortest is 25mins, longest is 45mins. Long walk (2hrs) at the weekend, and they do zoom karate class twice a week (45mins). No way are they getting an hour a day. They’d prefer to laze and stare at screens all day tbh. We’ve recently brought our x trainer out of storage and they’re ignoring that too.

I've only read the first 2 pages, but I'm astonished at the responses! My children never wanted to do anything physical, had to be pushed into after-school activities like gymnastics or football. Now as teens they barely leave their bedrooms much less the house.

[quote Notcontent]@DarkDisquiet - what sort of exercise is it? That sounds impressive![/quote]
My DC does 4-5 different sports, depending on the weather and season.

They compete in three of them, one of them at a national level, and wants to be national with another, so spend many hours training. Dance, gym and horseriding.

No national level gymnasts are also 'national level' horse riders.

My son (7) is that kid who doesn't want to sit still. He does an hours dog walk and 30-60 mins in the play-park daily at the moment. In the summer he barely comes inside at all. (During the Spring lockdown he practically had a 6 pack from near constant trampolining.)

If anything, I sometimes wish he was that kid sitting indoors playing Lego etc because (whilst he gross motor skills are good) his fine motor skills are pretty pants.

My two DD13 and DS11 do absolutely nothing.

DS won't go in the garden unless I go with him, DD will occasionally walk the dog for 15 minutes and that's it.

They are in school from 8.30 - 4pm each weekday full online timetable and then at the Weekends they veg inside.

DD is v slim. DS I'm starting to worry about as he has got so overweight.

They are both at private school so normally do enforced games and PE and DS plays hockey once a week.

They've both said that the best thing about lockdown is the food.

I should add we live in the country so oldest has met a friend a few times but it has to be coordinated and I have to drive her to meet someone.

No pavements for scooting and DS won't ride a bike.

Neither of them like the mud and the countryside is just a mud bath right now!

I think part of the problem is that societally we have become more sedentary, generally. We now have to think about specific exercise as daily tasks, work and study is done sat at a desk. Labour saving devises and economic systems mean that a lot of the manual work involved in day to day life is vastly reduced. As a parent, it is always difficult not to feel guilty over the challenges of ensuring your D.C. gets enough exercise. But there are other compelling priorities such as work and study which are important for survival in today's world. Competitive one-upmanship can be a bit soul destroying if you do feel challenged trying to make the (pretty arbitrary) grade. I think the solution needs to happen at a societal as well as individual level. Lockdowns and bad weather add to normal every day life pressures which do not make any allowances for Covid.

Maybe it’s about trying to find more activity in our daily comings and going’s.
With our dcs, they do a short exercise videos after breakfast. I make them do star jumps every hour or so (literally only 10!), they run about and play with each other. We have a table tennis set, they like to run about indoors. We also go for a walk once a day.

Don’t get me wrong - some days we don’t make the walk or exercise but I try desperately to get them moving.

And in my own reply to my last post, I have found fitness trackers help me personally. Thinking about exercise you can do from the door and that you can do inside helps too. I run inside and from the door everyday. I also add in a walk every day. My DH and DS are more busy with work and study than me, they don't like running inside the run happens mostly everyday for them, weather permitting. They only manage a walk some days though. My DS will do several up and down stairs circuits if he can't do a run or a walk. We are all a healthy weight and pretty fit in that we don't find our exercise at all difficult.

The wonder-children of MN

Ours used to do quite a bit of organised sport, however, as all's forbidden at the moment, they claim XBox etc. get's them to exercise different muscle groups (? ) and unless I allow rugby tackling on stone floors, they are happy to wait for the weather to improve.
I am a failed parent.

I have two boys at the very polar end of the exercise line the older one 14 is self motivated and very into his fitness so will do probably more than 60 mins every day, the younger one 11 is so so lazy and we force him out a couple of times a week and school does weekly PE challenges but if left he will not leave his bed all day

To the parents of kids being schooled at home, do they not get a lunch break where they could go out (obvs if they wanted to) when it's not dark?

My son has a PE lesson every day posted by his PE teacher which is 30 mins, then there’s a 30 min walk daily which we do (because otherwise he and his brother are hideous) and then there’s a challenge his teachers have posted to learn a dance, plus he does a different Haven dance every day. So I guess he exercises for the 60mins, but that’s because he has all these challenges so they don’t feel like exercise!

They've both said that the best thing about lockdown is the food

Mine too. They are at private school normally but the food is absolutely shit!