Childhood 'poisoned' by modern life

[Enid]

junk food and no exercise is 'poisoning' childhood

Surely all these depressed/obese kids are an urban myth?

My take on it is that there have always been fat kids and stupid people, whats new?

Are the people that signed this letter living in a bubble of nostalgia?

Jacqueline Wilson hardly strikes me as living in a nostalgia bubble

aww enif, I've been wondering where you were!

I tend to agree with you but also think our mental health service and support services for families with special needs or disabled children need a kick up the arse.

(I meant re depressed kids and others who become seriously obese)

I sadly think this is true, for some children. Some kids do eat junk, some kids do dress like small adults and some kids don't go outside, I was once told by a child in my class that she didn't need to go outside as she could see the countryside on a computer game but it's a bit of a generalisation to say it's true for all children.

Have to agree about education though, it's stifling and I sometimes feel guilty teaching in this way, especially to very young children.

Yes there have always been 'fat kids and stupid people' but obesity is definitely on the increase and education is a mess.

Sports days have disappeared and there are so many plastic toy replicas of things that imaginitive play seems almost non-existent.

It's ironic that after years of changing stuff that wasn't broken we are now talking about going back to healthy eating at school and the 3 R's

Enid, I was really shocked by the number of obese children I saw on holiday (in Devon/Cornwall). I've also met children at fitness clubs in hospitals (sent their by their GPs because their risk of developing heart problems/diabetes/joint problems is sky high) and the drop out rate is about 50% (for a 10 week course). The mother of one boy (13 stone, at 13 years old) was in tears explaining to me how she was trying to help him cut out junk food and felt very guilty that he'd got to the state he was in. He got breathless doing "steps" onto a low piece of apparatus for 90 seconds.

Also, the mother of a boy (who's pretty large) at our school told me she'd sent her son to another afterschool club because they have computers there he can play on (whereas ours is more of a footy/skipping/bikes kind of affair, with lots of outdoor play when the weather is good). madness.

I'm afraid there are certainly more fat kids these days - in the early seventies it was about one per school.

I'm slightly more sceptical over the depression, having met several mothers who took their preschool children to psychiatrists because they weren't happy all the time. Of course I recognise that social skills are important, but I worry that schools make rather too big a deal of whether children are making friends, quite possibly driving some into toxic friendships rather than allowing matters to take their own good time.

I wish they'd added lack of freedom to that list. To me, that is the biggest difference between my children's existence and mine at the same age. It's also has to be a major contributor to children's lack of exercise.

sorry, it not it's

my thought is that children want want want and seem to inevitably get get get.
if this mentality is carried over to adulthood then -yes - it will lead to depression.
My son is the only boy in his class without a mobile phone and seems a much happier less moany person than the majority of his whingy counterparts.
everything is here and now for most children - deferred gratification does not come into it.Deferring something makes it sooo much better when it arrives ..youth of today dont get this fact

flashingnose, I agree on lack of freedom being a major contributor to the lack of exercise. For instance, parents taking their children to school will either have to make the journey in both directions or get somewhere else straight afterwards, so are likely to drive rather than walk. Lack of freedom probably doesn't do wonders on the mental health front either - we all feel better if we have more control over our lives.

here's the letter

I agree with most of it.

There are a lot of signatories to that letter whose philosophy of childhood I heartily agree with, so yes, I think there is something in it.
I have it on good authority that a high-ranking person in my local council thinks its parks are a waste of time and money as all "ver kids" want to do is sit and play computer games, and you have to give "ver kids" what they want of course . Tosser.
We are still resisting letting ds have any kind of computer game (and yes I know they can be great etc etc, but so is the tomato demons comic he wrote yesterday evening, and the Gormenghastly brick tower he worked on for 40 mins with his little sis), or in any way having access to kidulty paraphernalia that seems to be all the rage in Year Three now no hair gel or jewellery for starters.
We have a lot of chubby kids in our area too. It really is walk out the door and get in the car here, despite excellent public transport links. My two do plenty of sport at school, some at weekends, but almost all our leisure outings start and finish with a ten minute walk to the station or bus stop.

and what were the headlines on this am's Today? NHS cuts re obesity funding, grrh! Makes my blood boil, gov is SO short-termist!

Oh, and hello FlashingNose , how are you & yours? IKWYM about freedom - hoping our new place will allow DS1 a little more as not so worried about busy roads here now we're in the sticks.

gosh, heavy-weight & diverse list of signatories, Susan Greenfield, Dorothy Rowe, Jonathon Porrit. v impressive! Hope this leads to some gov action.

god I love 'sedentary screen-based entertainment'

we live in the 21st Century fgs, computer games and telly are both great in moderation, gettign bored in the garden is also great in moderation.

But wholeheartedly agree that families need the kind of supportive intervention that bundle describes - we as a whole society are responsible for ensuring a healthy lifestyle.
Not to mention ample support for children with SN and their families.

Yes, computer games are fine in moderation but there are far too many kids who do nothing but play them all the time, and far too many parents willing to let them do so because it makes for a hassle free life (in the short term) for them.

Take the computers away and they complain that there's nothing to do. It would never occur to them to go out and play in the garden or go for a bike ride or whatever. It's so sad.

yes but they are the stupid people

we've always had them

All I know is that in trying to dress my child like a child and not a mini adult, trying to limit TV, trying not to buy too many toys, trying not to feed my children crap food and trying not to push my child into being an academic genius always feels like I am swimming against the tide.

My daughter is not at school yet and so perhaps the reality is different to the way I imagine it to be. But the media and advertisers feeds to me the way they think children are and should be and there will be an awful lot of parents buying into that, or not bright enough or without enough time to go against that.

I also think (where they are talking about seeing children with emotional, behavioural problems) that we diagnose a lot quicker and more often than we used to.

WHen I was at school, we had 2 children in my class who would almost certainly fit the modern day ADHD diagnosis. Back then, they were just seen as trouble makers! Dh also has a friend who seems like a classic Aspergers person but was never given that diagnosis as a child and only finds that his whole behaviour pattern fits into that as an adult.

Enid, I agree that stupid people have always existed, but in the past their stupidity and its effects on those around them were not bolstered by the easy availability of junk food or packaged children's entertainment (I don't see anything wrong with cake or computer games in moderation btw).

DS doesn't do "getting bored in the garden in moderation", he does "spending hours in the garden, kicking a football around (so you will not be impressed Enid ) and boring all the rest of the family.

"Mummy it is England against Paraguay, who do you want to win".
England.
"well Paraguay are winning 3-0".
"Mummy it is Chelsea against Real Madrid now, who do you want to win".
.........

dd1 has just twigged that other people have things called playstations

(she still doesn't know about children's itv though..snurk)