To wonder if passive smoking was the reason I was so rubbish at PE

[Comedycook]

So I am a child of the 1980s. I always thought passive smoking had had no effect on me but recently I've been thinking and I'm not so sure.

So my parents both smoked throughout my childhood. Pretty sure my mum smoked during her pregnancy. They always smoked indoors and in the car...no windows open.

Anyway, I've always been crap at PE...now I know there are many factors which could affect that. But I'm talking from a really young age where I can't see any significant difference between myself and my peers. I remember being 4 years old in the playground and any type of running race or game being last and last by a long way every single time. Now I wasn't a fat child at all. I was thin throughout my primary school years...I also wasn't particularly sedentary compared to the other kids. I did swimming and ballet and all the usual stuff. Nor did I have an unhealthy diet. So why was I constantly so awful at running and last every time? Was thinking to myself maybe it was down to the passive smoking?. I also suffer greatly from any cold or respiratory virus...it always takes me a long time to recover.

Anyway, I'm not especially traumatized or upset by any of this ..I'm literally just wondering... anyone have any thoughts?

I didn't find I could run until I was 21, really rubbish at cross country at school, it always felt like torture, but thought it might be a cheap form of exercise at university. I'd been running on the treadmill for ten minutes in the gym and just built it up from there, making up my own couch to 5K I guess. I can still remember the joy of being able to keep going for half an hour and then that becoming easier. I did the London marathon when I was 26. Just the once, the training is really time consuming.

Am 48 now, I hadn't run outside for months, and last time I did I had to walk a fair bit. Have been going to the gym though and doing 20 minutes on the treadmill plus 20 minutes of other cardio (plus lifting weights in other sessions). Was really pleased to run for 50 minutes and no walking! My legs are buggered for the next day or so, but never mind 😅

Sure it’s more down to genetics- like the monkey bars; I don’t think it’s down to nurture or practice.

Again Roy Castle may never have smoked vin his life but he played the trumpet night after night in Smokey night clubs taking large gulps of Smokey air ,it waa a pretty unique situation.

I don't think Roy Castle is a good example to use here.

He got cancer in older years due to passive smoking, but he was very a fit and healthy record breaker throughout most of his life.

It just sounds like you are rubbish at running OP.

Some people are.

Me and DH do not smoke and our DD is crap at all PE. Especially running.

My husband's parents smoked and his mum even said she remembers breast feeding him whilst smoking (nearly 50 years ago), and he was and still is sporty. He used to play football every week even in his 30's/early 40s

That’s not really a logical thought op. Smoking was at times in our history done by the majority of the population, and we still had folks excelling. It was nothing to do with the smoking.

My parents smoked too and my mum definitely smoked when she was pregnant with me. I loved sports at school and was reasonable at them, and have exercised all my life since.

Perhaps. But one of the most sporty in my year (later participated in the commonwealth games) was in a household of smokers. They were very middle class and I was always surprised they smoked indoors, but then all my friends whose parents smoked did so indoors in the 80’s / 90’s. No excuse as the risks were well known. I guess maybe the passive smoking risk became more known with Roy Castle campaigns but no excuses they were aware smoking in front of children was bad.

I barely remember being four or my sporting capabilities at that age.
It would be lovely if we could blame our parents for every little thing but it's just impossible to know.
My slim, strong feisty 6 year old can dance, stretch, do the splits and cartwheel but much like me she runs like a demented slow badger.

Passive smoking is horrible and I feel for you having had to grow up with it.

I couldn't run at school. I taught myself to do it in middle age. I say taught because it is something I had to learn to do. Once I did that running became very easy very quickly but running round the school field was never possible because the teachers would just tell us to run. Some kids would do it easily and a very few, including me, couldn't manage at all.

School PE lessons were very bad in terms of setting pupils up to be active for life. I don't know if that one of their aims. PE at my DC school is the same as I had decades ago. A few elite kids excelling and the rest doing terribly or hiding in the sick bay to get out of it.

Passive smoking might not be the cause but you can work on your lungs now as an adult. If you have symptoms long after having a cold you might need an inhaler.

It makes me very angry now to think about how resistant people were to smoking bans, particularly around smoking in cars with children.

I definitely agree that passive smoking is terrible for health in general and can have life altering consequences. However in your case no I don't believe passive smoking is the cause behind your inability to run quickly as a child. People are naturally gifted at different things, my parents didn't smoke and I was (am) shit at running, loved the monkey bars though. Most little kids are good at monkey bars due to ratio between weight and strength. Sounds like maybe you had lower muscle tone perhaps as a kid?

My parents never smoked and were ridiculously healthy but I've never managed to be any good at running or PE.

Some people are just rubbish at things - not everything has to be blamed on something else.

Rubbish too. And asthmatic with 2 smoking parents. No asthma now and it turned out, I could run without wheezing. It just took being an adult to show me that I could.

The constant references to "blame" are bizarre. Do you think passive smoking is made up? Do you think we should never discuss it or it's effects because it places some sort of 'blame' on other people?

I mean I spent the better part of two decades living in a haze of smoke...it was worse as a small child because then it was both my parents...my mum died when I was a teen so after that it was just my dad smoking.

Whether it was the cause of my uselessness at running, I'm not sure...but I don't think it had no effect on me.

I had a very similar experience - could not run or do sports at school. Some of it was being crap, but a lot was undiagnosed asthma due to my mother's smoking.

At times I would literally be unable to breathe, and she'd tell me to 'stop being stupid, of course you can breathe'. I realised I could make it stop if I was able to fall asleep, and luckily I never had a bad attack at school.

When I left home, I found I actually really enjoyed exercise and was good at it. I also got an asthma diagnosis at age 21, and my performance improved a lot after that due to taking the correct medication.

Exercise-induced asthma is a thing, expecially in cold weather, so if people are experiencing normal lung function at rest, but feel they 'can't breathe properly' when exercising, it's worth getting checked, especially if you have any sort of wheezing.

Most people will have their 'thing' that they enjoy as a way into exercise (e.g. aerobics, dance, swimming) and I believe everyone can run if they have the correct instruction and work on any muscle imbalances - but finding PE teachers who can do this is like a needle in a haystack, especially in the 1970s!

Second hand smoke has a serious adverse impact on health, we know that as a fact.

Whether it specifically impacted your performance at PE is probably hard to establish years later, but it’s certainly not beyond reason to suggest it might be the case.

I’m not saying that passive smoking didn’t have a negative effect on your health but I think it’s unlikely to have a direct link with being crap at pe

I was terrible at PE. But have since got into fitness and in my 40s and a decent middle distance runner.

I don't think anyone has said passive smoking is made up, have they?

Just that it's a bit tenuous to suggest it caused you to be bad at PE.

No smoking in my home at all and I was still rubbish at sports.

Not everything can be blamed on your parents!

I haven't RTFT. I was also terrible at PE, but I think it's just because I have awful hand-to-eye coordination. My parents and grandmother, who lived with us, all smoked like chimneys, and I always stank of smoke. When I was 17, still living at home, I developed a smoking-related disease despite never having been a smoker myself. This kicked off a lifetime of poor health. So I definitely do think kids can really suffer from second-hand smoking.

My dad always smoked in the living room, in the car etc but I was always the fastest runner in my year! And pretty good at cross country too

There would have been no sports people in my generation if this was a thing.

I was born in the 50s, and throughout my childhood, everyone smoked. Seriously, if you didn't you were thought of as weird. It was the social lubricant of its time. You met someone, you offered them a cigarette. My grandfather was the only adult I knew who didn't smoke, and even he would very occasionally take one when pressed in a social situation.

In my teens, I was the only one of my friends who didn't smoke.

I sometimes read posts on mumsnet where mothers insist that a smoker has a shower and changes their clothes before they touch their baby, and wonder how we all survived.

So no, your lack of physical prowess is highly unlikely to be down to a parent who smoked..

I mean I spent the better part of two decades living in a haze of smoke...

I guarantee that most people in their sixties did too. And looking back, it was grim. But you need to let go of this as a reason for your issues with sport.

Be nice. OP is just musing.

I doubt it, footballers used to smoke upwards of 20 a day and they were fine. You're genetically not very athletic is my best assumption.