Sports day shock

[Mrslarge24]

My children have recently had their sports days.
I have one very sporty child, and one that gets very anxious about anything sport-related and dreads sports day! Much like myself as a kid.
One sports day was for y3&y4, the other was for Y5 & y6.
I was amazed at the lack of general fitness in so many of the kids.
They had to do a "long-distance run" which was about 200m. A huge amount of them couldn't run it all and some didn't even make it half way before walking and panting.
My non-sporty one managed it fine, because although he doesn't enjoy much sport we do go for long walks, he plays in the garden alot and loves swimming with us so has a basic fitness level. Much like myself, I'm no fitness fanatic!
AIBU to think this is shocking to see children of this age not be able to run/jog 200m?!
i guess it's computers/iPads etc but at what point does a parent start to feel ashamed to have let their children get so unfit?!
Made me feel quite sad 😢

Yes I agree with that but that’s something parents need to work on!

But not all the parents will have the resources or the knowledge to do this. Which is my other point, I think education is important.

I get that some people enjoy judging & shaming but I don’t think it’s useful when we need real change.

@arethereanyleftatall
I've had that experience too, 30 min swim class spent a ridiculous amount of time waiting. 6 kids in a non-swimmer class.

Changed to a different swim school ratio

Everyone in this country has had the access to free healthcare. Almost everyone has a phone with access to the internet. I refuse the notion that every fat and unfit child must be down to lack of parental education. Just as every fat adult is not down to medical issues/lack of education. People know, they are just lazy/feckless/find excuses for everything.

it’s the same as how on every thread about weight loss people say it’s too expensive to eat healthily. No, it’s not. You can buy frozen veg, tinned lentils etc it’s just more tasty to have a takeaway (which would ironically be more expensive than most meals).

Making excuses for people isn’t going to affect change.

we’ve had several years of not being allowed to comment for fear of being screamed down about “fat-shaming”. And now the children are affected and it’s no joke.

Sports Day races don't necessarily help. They'll always be the child who comes last.

Keep an eye out for the 'my child doesn't want to do sports day' threads.

Making excuses for people isn’t going to affect change.

I don’t think acknowledging socio economic issues is making excuses but you can carry on ranting.

I try to avoid driving in certain areas around the school run times to avoid busy traffic.

Recently I had to and was shocked at the sight of many school children walking home who were overweight.

Acknowledging is one thing. Using it as a blanket excuse is quite another

Children need to learn that someone always comes last/not everyone can win. I say that as a child who usually came last. It’s life.

There is definitely a financial aspect to being fat. Its well known that lower economic groups are more overweight.

It has to be to do with diet. Cheap food is upf and filled with what?

You can't out run a bad diet.

It also doesn't help that schools have cut lunch times from and hour to 45/40 minutes. Less time for kids to be active.

It's no different than 20 years ago in fairness. I used to ace 200m because everyone would just give up after going all out at 50m. I used to walk several miles to school, play out and play football a couple of times a week. Had I ran against my other sporty peers I'd probably had come near last, I was no fast chicken but would win every track event on sports day at school.

I think it’s complicated, building fitness young is very helpful. BUT I’m a SAHM who can take DD after preschool to activities which cost me in the region of £600 a month (partly because she does a lot, partly because she has a couple of sports that are quite expensive).

If however, we were both working full time with long commutes and DD was in wrap around care, by the time we got home we would have time for dinner and bed (she’s little and has an early start) and thats it.

By the time she could stay up later for sports clubs that we could get to she would have probably not been in great shape for a while. We probably would have filled up the weekend with activities to make up for it though.

Disclaimer, I’m tubby with shite fitness, we never did any sports clubs and when we did make it to team sports as teens our parents weren’t interested and weren’t available for transport either. Trying to do things differently for my DD. I would also say DD is at the top end of the healthy BMI range but notably fitter than a lot of her peers because she is very physically active, I’ve seen some slim kids really struggle because they just don’t get an opportunity to move very much, mostly due to their parents work schedules.

I do think when kids are young they often love moving and they lose the love of it once a lack of fitness sets in because it’s no longer fun, it’s now a chore.

@Mrslarge24 That is really worrying!

I'm amazed the children weren't put into shorter races if they were that unfit that they couldn't complete such a short race.

I was no good at winning the 100 metres at school...but the Mile - that was my Forté..Loved that one and won it every year {I wasn't fast- but had tenacity}..
But no child flagged so they stopped.

I have been physically sick on sports day as an infants... they gave prizes, and I was just vomiting into the grass with a headache. {Remember it vividly}-too sick to run.

I agree with you. I don't live in the UK and tbh I don't see many obese children in my small town. All the kids at the two primary schools near me are often outside being active.

However, it isn't just up to the schools to make sure kids are active, of course parents should be encouraging it too, and there are no excuses why they shouldn't be doing this, no matter how busy they are.

I live in a city suburb, brilliant for me without a car as everything is nearby and walking distance. But so many people use cars for the smallest distances. My son should be able to play out but can't, the cars are non stop. In school holidays, I pay £30 a day for him to go to the holiday club and be able to run around in an area just metres away from our house. When I was his age, I would have been just 'out', running around, riding a bike. We have ruined our own environments for kids, reliance on cars and rubbish to eat.

Christ I’m late 50s and a stone or so overweight but I’m sure I could run just over a tenth of a mile ffs. That is no distance at all!

This thread is eye opening!

Look I’m a nice person who came from a poor background and I’m honestly aware that the reasons that people aren’t parenting effectively are multi factorial. And there’s a lot of stuff that schools could/should be doing to ameliorate the effect that’s having on kids in general.

But honestly I think the whole ‘let’s not judge anyone ever and just be understanding and encouraging’ isn’t doing society any good at all. Look around.

My DCs are early 20s now but I made sure they got outside and did some sort of exercise most days. Whether that was bike, scooter, park, swimming or just a walk.

Admittedly screens weren’t an issue then other than TV.

As a kid, I was out walking all day long {Summer hols and in summer evenings we played out}- loved it.
But cars have absolutely proliferated... the Country roads that one could walk along safely, now have cars zooming along at National Speed Limit.

Kids going to horse shows used to hack there- the roads were so much quieter.

Even Youngs Brewery in Wandsworth gave up their horses because of heavy traffic - it's really sad.

Weren't our children lucky!

Screens are the blight of so many childhoods now.

Screens and heavy traffic.

There has always been ''Stranger danger''

As a child and teen, I walked alone for probably many thousands of miles, in town and country, UK and abroad... but only ever experienced SA {Sex abuse} indoors from a man known to family.

I really think PE teachers need to take some responsibility

But honestly I think the whole ‘let’s not judge anyone ever and just be understanding and encouraging’ isn’t doing society any good at all. Look around.

Im confused by this @Seagrassbasket. Are you saying no judgement exists now or in the past? Did the judgement lead to change? Obviously you have to understand socioeconomic factors in order to drive change but I don’t think there has been any change has there? I thought the poor were getting poorer in the UK?

200m is a fairly long sprint depending on age and fitness... at our school they had 25 metres for infants - yes they were expected to run!

Then there was the ''Parent's race''...That was really competitive!

Dads ran separately from Mums.

It was great fun.

I recently attended a primary school sports day. I was very suprised to see half the year 5 & 6 children were obese. I felt very concerned for them all. They will only continue to grow, if their diet and exercise is not modified now. My child did tell me about some class mates, who became severely overweight when they returned from lock down. I thought she was exaggerating until I saw them with my own eyes. Obviously they've continued to put more weight on since then. Why aren't their parents doing anything about it? If mine get slightly chubby, I tell them to go play football, go on the trampoline and I stop buying treats for a few weeks.