Kids won't automatically be overweight & unhealthy if they don't do sports

[Echobelly]

MIL every now and then frets that our kids don't do enough sports and often buys them things that will encourage them to be more active in a heavily Dropping A Hint Manner - she's a bit of fatphobe and I think is convinced our kids will become overweight and unhealthy if they're not doing sporty stuff (other grandkids are very sporty). Kids (11 and 14) are not overweight, nor unhealthy as far as I can tell, DS in particular is a skinny little stick.

I grew up in a household where we all stopped doing sports as soon as GCSEs were over, none of us was ever in a sports team or did any extra-curricular sports and my sister was the only one of us to ride a bike (and that was only about for a year or two) and none of was or is overweight. But we ate a decent diet and were not ferried everywhere by car - neither are my kids and they both walk 1.5 miles each way to and from school every weekday, so it's not like they're totally sedentary. Anyone else had to deal with someone who thinks kids have to be doing sport to be healthy?

There are other ways of exercising other than doing competitive sport which is not for everyone.

I should say, oldest, like me at their age, does performing arts, which provides social interaction and movement. I think for me that took the place that sports does for some other kids. I'm trying to get DS involved in that as well as he's really good at drama, but unfortunately he says he's not sure it's his thing.

I hated organised sports in high school - netball, hockey, all that stuff. I just got no exercise during those lessons because I didn't enjoy team games and wasn't very skilled with a ball. I just skulked about at the back hoping the ball wouldn't come my way. But in Year 10 our school started putting on boxercise and dance class as other options. Or they would take a group of us to a local running track and let us run a mile. I bloody loved that and threw myself into it. I wished they'd done it earlier. I got loads of exercise and really felt the benefits of it. I think all children should be allowed access to physical activity that isn't a team sport, in their school years. I love running, I love dancing. I love aerobics. All that kind of stuff that doesn't necessarily involve any skill or team work!

Some people love a bit of team sports; some do not. I was shit at everything in school, which meant people were horrible to me in teams, which meant I hated team sports.

Neither dh or i ever played team sports after school, but we regularly do individual sports. We are both very sociable and confident. Ithink team sports possibly attract the confident ones rather than imbuing kids with confidence. I have never been overweight, although a lot of the skinny girls in high school hot quite big in their 20s.

What I do find fascinating is all the girls who appear to do lots of dancing, but are also very overweight. How does that work?

And my adult sport is running. It would be safer to join a running club but I don't like being tied to times and people. Happy to nod at you in solidarity on a run, but run with anyone? No thanks.

I did dance (badly) as a child/ teenager. By the time I gave that up I'd started the DoE Award that required a physical activity which led me to learning to swim and walking briskly to school. Since then I've always done something. I loathed PE and especially team sports.

I'm hoping I've given my DCs a broad foundation of sport/ activity for life. They do swimming, parkruns and martial arts as well as functional walking. DS2 is naturally inclined to team sports. DS1 is dyspraxic and autistic so giving him a foundation of individual sport has been particularly useful for his co-ordination and that there is more than PE on offer.

You can have activity without sport, but that's often difficult to get enough of and at an effective intensity. Activity is essential for good long term health and not just about "out-running a bad diet", it's about bone density, muscle mass, cardiovascular health. You can be slim without it, but it's not necessarily good health.

I'd encourage some form of sport/ activity as there are so many benefits, physical, social and mental. Neither of you are being completely unreasonable, just looking from different angles.

Not everybody likes or wants to play sports.

My experience of dancing was a lot of waiting around and little bursts of activity as there'd often be different grades in the room, choreographing different sections or just taking turns. For a few hours a week there was a lot of non-movement. It was good for strength, flexibility and some fitness, but definitely wouldn't have balanced an excessive diet.

The lasting legacy for me was that it made going to yoga/ fitness classes more accessible in my 20s, habits I still have 20 years later so well worth it in the long run. It was a good foundation for an active adulthood.

I’m not sure walking is a form of exercise as it doesn’t elevate your heart rate.
Walking is good though but as long as you are able, you should do something that takes a bit more effort. I think most kids run around a lot anyway in playgrounds and ride their bikes etc..

Sometimes it takes a while to find your "thing"
I did sprinting at school but hated everything else. As an adult I've found I love aerial hoop, pole fitness, spin classes and lifting weights

@FiveMins my grandparents lived to late 80's / 100 etc and didn't do a huge amount of sport but they did walk practically everywhere so got plenty of exercise , no car so i think thats the difference
No counting 10000 steps they prob did that and some every day going to work , shops , school etc

My kids are very sporty and actually at times I felt they maybe did too much but some kids don't like sport and would rather do cubs or drama etc, being sporty and being active are not the same thing
No mental health benefits doing a sport of you hate it

DS1(14) hates most sports. He quite likes basketball, but not enough for it to be a regular commitment for him. But he goes for a very long walk, either by himself or with his brother several days a week. I could see him perhaps being into hiking when he's older. So the propensity for exercise is there, just not the interest in sports. Not all exercise has to be sports and, while I see the huge benefits of being involved in sport in so many ways, it really isn't for everyone. DS2 is more sporty, but prefers running etc to team sports.

As someone who followed the very typically female pattern of quitting all sports/physical activities at 14 and re-found my athleticism at 40 I really do wish very much that I hadn't spent so many years without it. I think it's so important for everyone to find something physical that they love. Not just because of how good it is for your body but how it is for your mind and sense of your own worth. A part of me is so fulfilled now that wasn't for much of my life and it's because of the physical exercise. I know it's not magic but I do wonder if I would have been so fucking keen to put myself so constantly second in my awful marriage if I had felt the continual pull of of my sport. It actually makes me put myself first because I never want to stop, it gives me a way of decompressing, of working through mental problems, of pushing worry aside and centring myself. It gives me a whole social life where play is at the heart of our interactions in a way that adults don't otherwise get to have.

My DS is not a formal sports kind of person. He doesn't enjoy team sports and isn't into the restrictions of games like tennis and aspects of martial arts right now (I suspect he could like the latter two when he's older). But he does dance, acrobatics and swimming. We do long cycles together, etc. It's all about finding your own thing that you really love, but everyone really should be encouraged to find that thing.

I would be actively encouraging them right from the start and not allowing PE to be that thing now. Unless it's changed massively, and I don't think it has from talking to teens and parents of teens that I know. PE is kind of shit once you are in secondary school and if anything it is often the thing that puts kids off sports. It's not even necessarily the PE itself but it's the whole palaver of it being wedged into the school day. The rush to get showered and changed and back to the next academic class straight after that makes it feel really fucking unpleasant to a lot of kids. And that's without how intimidating the changing room can be for teenagers. So many people I know say PE is the reason they don't do sports. So relying on PE as physical activity with a vague plan that they then go onto to somethings else when it's done, is likely to fail.

Of course it is.

www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/running-and-aerobic-exercises/walking-for-health/

Absolutely. I detested all team sports at school with a passion, but enjoy walking/hiking, aerobics and yoga and used to be a regular gym-goer.

Things have perhaps changed since I was at school, but a large chunk of the sporty kids were also the bullies, so I can't say it helped fostered team working or self confidence either.

Active is different from sport. I dare say the kids walking 3-4 miles a day every day for the school run are just as active as the ones dropped off and picked up in a Range Rover and taken to a 30 minute tennis lesson.

Of course walking elevates your heart rate if you’re walking briskly, and kids on the school run often run, skip and climb on the way too. The improvement in public health that would be brought about if people walked more and drove less is huge.

I think teen girls in particular dislike competitive sport, neither of mine were sporty, not in any teams, nor participated in any clubs. They were much happier curled up with a book.

However, as young twenties, they now walk a lot (neither has a car), one goes to the gym two to three times a week, and is very strong, and the other goes to yoga twice a week, and likewise, is now very strong and supple. They are both size 8, with 26" waists.

I make my kids go to swimming and running club. They moan about it at times , buts they are nonnegotiable. They need to do physical activities after school some days of the week

They would gladly sit at home on bums given the choice. But they have been going for a few years now and just accept it. And have done well at some running events and that spurs them on.

I think your mother is right personally.

I agree - walking is definitely exercise if you walk briskly, get a bit warm/sweaty as a result, walk up and down hills etc.

Walking at a slow shuffle (which I see a lot of people do) isn't going to do much for fitness at all.

I don't think walking is enough exercise - maybe for the elderly but not for teenagers who are probably not briskly walking either, the ones around me are all dawdling with their mates. It's great to walk and I walk a lot but it's not enough on its own.

I did a lot of walking and cycling as a child/teen but I wish my parents had pushed me to something else. Doesn't have to be competitive sport - martial arts, yoga, running, it's all good

I don’t think sport is necessary. In fact I got turned off all exercise by thinking the only option was team sports which I hated.

But exercise is necessary and I do think you might be slightly underestimating how much exercise is required. Walk to school & back, school PE (how often a week?) and a bit of movement in a performing arts class, isn’t terrible but isn’t loads either. And it’s not really building the habit of regular exercise for the future.

I would be trying to encourage the habit of some sort of physical hobby at least once a week outside of school. It doesn’t have to be sport, it could be dance, going for a run, going for a bike ride, an exercise class. But getting into that habit will really help them longer term. I wish I’d done it.