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Copyright 2008 Pamplin Media Group
Evan Jensen
Nov 5, 2008
Last Friday night, Estacada High School students students Eli Duhrkoop and Jacob Layton spent Halloween on the field at PGE Park battling the La Salle Falcons for another victory for the Rangers. On most Friday nights this fall, the two friends have helped move the ball downfield so that the Rangers could close the season with a 7-2 record before playoffs. But on most Saturday mornings since early September, they've swapped their helmets and pads for black-and-white-striped referee jerseys.
Duhrkoop and Layton are two of five local youth football officials who referee Estacada Youth Football and spend their Saturdays at the EHS playing fields where youth from kindergarten through 8th grade run the ball with parents crowding the sidelines.
“This is my second year as a referee,” sophomore Jacob Layton said. “I’m a linebacker and running back for the Rangers. Reffing the kids’s games is a lot of fun. They come to our games on Friday nights to see us, so it’s cool to be out here to see what they can do on the field.”
Officials for Estacada Youth Football include Layton, Duhrkoop, Russ Carey, Tyler Callahan and Terry Cleveland. Each of the youth football officials are required to attend a series of classes and pass a regimented exam that demonstrates their knowledge of the game and ability to call the plays as they see them.
Parents' deaths have left eight sports-loving children scattered and with an uncertain future. Now their aunt has a new mission - finding a place where 'everybody can be together'
© 2005 - 2008 Canwest Digital Media
DAVID YATES
November 12, 2008
It was the biggest game of the season for the Sun Youth Hornets and À Ma Baie Eagles as the two undefeated teams squared off for the provincial mosquito football championship at Molson Stadium on the weekend.
It was an intense game with little to choose between two teams that are stacked with players from low-income families. In the end, the À Ma Baie team from Roxboro won 20-12 to finish the season with a perfect 15-0 record, while Sun Youth was 13-1.
Most of the Sun Youth boys, age 10 and 11, will quickly forget about the loss. But for runningback/linebacker Marcus Mitchell - named his team's most valuable player in the championship game after scoring a touchdown and making many timely tackles - there is more adversity to face.
Marcus's father, Kenneth Mitchell, died of liver cancer in August after the boy's mother, Jackie White, succumbed to a brain aneurism two years ago. Their untimely deaths have left Marcus, 11, and his seven siblings, who range in age from 9 to 22, with a future that is less than certain.
Many members of the tightly knit family were at the big game, sitting in the stands behind the Sun Youth bench. In recent months, following the father's death, the children have been scattered to live in the homes of relatives.
Marcus's two oldest brothers, Michael White, 22, and Ryan White, 21, were in attendance. Michael studies physical education at McGill University and plays on the Redmen basketball team, while Ryan is at Vanier College and is a captain and offensive lineman with the Cheetahs football team. He plans to go to university next year and hopes to continue playing football.
Copyright © 2008 GateHouse Media, Inc.
Jon Buzby
Nov 02, 2008
The end of the fall youth sports season usually comes with some elation, some relief and for some, not so many wins.
My friend’s 6-8 year-old midget football team is getting ready to play its last game of the season. It has been a season of ups and downs, lots of laughter and a few tears, and one big fat zero in the win column.
He talks incessantly every Monday morning about how his players love to practice, can’t wait for games and give him everything a coach could ever ask for from kids that age.
He claims you probably couldn’t even tell they’ve never won, and yet he wants to win the last game more than anyone. And not because he really cares that much about winning, but more so because he cares that much about his kids — and doesn’t want to see any of them have to go through an entire season without winning a single game.
He also knows there’s a better chance of seeing Santa than winning the last game, and so he’s trying to figure out how to address his team afterward. He needs a speech that for the first time can’t include the words, “We’ll get them next week.”
I suggested that after the game he gather the entire team around him and invite the parents to come over, too. And then ask a simple question to his players who gave him so much throughout the season: “What was your favorite part of this season?”
My guess is he’ll get plenty of kids volunteering their answers. I also assume some will be very good football-related memories, while others will be the favorite snack that was served or something goofy a player or coach did during the season.
© Copyright 2007-2008 | The New Jersey Jewish News
Ron Kaplan
November 6, 2008
When it comes to organized youth sports, parents should keep their hopes high but their feet on the ground.
Rick Wolff, host of The Sports Edge, a weekly program on youth sports on WFAN (660 AM), assessed the current state of affairs for a gathering of 40 parents, coaches, and students at Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School in Livingston on Oct. 30.
Among the issues raised were how to keep kids engaged if their team was having a poor season, how to make sure the coaches distribute playing time evenly, and how to be encouraging without turning into the dreaded “Little League parent.”
While he admitted not having all the answers all the time, Wolff has a wealth of experience that most parents can’t claim. He and his son, John, shared a unique bond: they both graduated from Harvard University and played two years of minor league baseball.
Rick Wolff remained in baseball as a psychological consultant for the Cleveland Indians in the early 1990s. It was there he made a startling discovery.
Talking to the players during one spring training, he learned half of them had decidedly unpleasant memories of playing organized sports as kids. Although they loved to play the games, they hated dealing with coaches whose practices they considered unfair.
“If these were the best and brightest [athletes],” Wolff asked, “what about normal kids?”
Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company
Craig Smith
I've been around the block a few times and there are still things that baffle me about high-school sports.
What follows is my list of things I can't comprehend. In compiling it, I talked to friends in coaching and sports administration and some fellow sports writers.
The Smitty "I-don't-understand-this" list:
• Parents who have the opportunity to watch their kids play high-school sports but don't do it.
• Coaches who either don't want to take their foot off the gas when a game gets lopsided or don't know how to do it gracefully.
• Coaches who don't insist that players say "thank you" to the bus drivers who drive them to games and other folks who do things for the team.
• Basketball coaches who scream at officials and then are surprised when their players receive technical fouls.
• Parents who are so obsessed with their child's sports that they watch practices, but then never attend a parent-teacher conference or an open house. These same parents will ask their son or daughter, "Are you starting?" but won't ask, "Are you ready for the math test?"
• Coaches who say they are in it for kids and then fight over players in the offseason with coaches of other sports in the school.
• Basketball players on teams that are hopelessly behind who decline to attempt miracle shots at the buzzer. You can't be worried about your precious shooting average, can you?
• Administrators who listen to a complaint from a parent before that parent has talked to the coach.
• Coaches who don't have their varsity team watch an occasional JV or C game. Having the eyes of seniors and juniors on them means a lot to young players and helps develop the feel of a "program" to the sport at the school.
Copyright 2008, Capital Newspapers Division of The Hearst Corporation,
Tom Keyser
November 11, 2008
Sandwiched in the middle of two defenders my weight went one way while my knee popped going the other way. I went down and couldn't get up.
That's how Karly DeSimone, a Shenendehowa High School soccer star, severely injured her right knee. And that's how she kicked off accounts of her comeback on the Times Union blog "Youth Sports" that drew attention — and passionate comments — to the rough-and-tumble world of girls soccer.
Karly, a junior, is one of many in the Capital Region living the reality confronting girl athletes around the country. Knee injuries, specifically tears of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), have become more common as more girls play sports such as soccer and basketball that require sudden starts, stops and shifts in direction.
"In our small world of youth sports, I can count 10 girls who have suffered serious knee injuries in the past two years," wrote Joyce Bassett, a Times Union graphics editor and soccer/hockey mom who runs the blog, in the April 14 entry introducing Karly's first post.
The injuries are more common in girls than boys — three to five times more common — because of anatomical, biomechanical and possibly hormonal differences, says Dr. Eric Aronowitz, a local orthopedic surgeon who specializes in sports medicine. He performs about 75 ACL reconstructions a year, he says. About half are for high school athletes, and of those, about 75 percent are female, he says. He has operated on Karly and other female high school soccer players.
"Have you ever seen them play?" he says. "They're rough. They're very aggressive, very physical. I'm surprised they don't have more injuries."
Aronowitz's arthroscopic surgery on Karly in March was required to reconstruct the ACL as well as repair both the medial and lateral menisci of her right knee. Reconstructing the ACL, which connects the tibia (shin bone) to the femur (thigh bone), was most important, because it is the ligament most responsible for making the knee stable.
You can't reattach or stitch the ACL back together, Aronowitz says, because once it's torn, the blood supply is gone, and it is nonviable tissue. So he reconstructs it with other tissue, usually, as he did with Karly, using two tendons that he stripped from her hamstring just below her knee.
"I tell kids now there's a 90 to 95 percent chance that they're going to get back to where they were," Aronowitz says. "Six months later I expect them to be doing what they were doing before."
In Karly's case, that meant playing soccer.
Blogging through recovery
In the beginning I was not aware of a lot of things I know now about the surgery and recovery. I was also frustrated that I would be sitting out from what I love to do most (play sports). ... When I go to see my team practice or play, or think about the upcoming tournaments I will be missing, it's hard for me to not get upset and discouraged.
Copyright © 2008
Aug 4, 2008
Rich Taylor
Children that have Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD ) face an uphill battle in life, whether it be in the classroom or on the playing field. While sometimes they are perceived as different, they just want to be treated like any other kid.
Unfortunately, too often that doesn't happen.
Unable to sustain attention, focus and possess self control, players with ADD are commonly scolded or yelled at by coaches, and teased unmercifully by teammates. What started out as fun soon becomes an overbearing problem for the child and his or her family. Quitting becomes an option, but it shouldn't have to be.
Parents need to identify what particular youth sports are beneficial for their ADD child and weed out others that may present too many challenges.
As with any ADD child, the prominent foe on the field is the child itself. Distractions during a game or practice means they won't be able to comprehend instructions or rules because they've become sidetracked. Their inability to follow structure and order in the classroom only becomes magnified on the athletic side.
For any ADD child, strenuous exercise and activity in organized sports is a good thing. It reduces stress and promotes well being. Social and emotional skills are developed and enhanced.
To avoid embarrassment on the playing field for the child, parents should inform the coach that their youngster has ADD. The coach is not a mind reader, and although he or she is probably not trained to specifically address that learning disability, they'll at least know the situation.
Giving the coach guidelines on how to treat certain problems that arise can be very helpful and will help the child avoid any undue ridicule. Don't wait for things to unfold. Be proactive.
© 2008 The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
October 26, 2008
Robin Pyle
When a parent pulled a gun at a local youth soccer game last weekend because his daughter wasn't getting enough playing time, it was the third time this decade a parent has pulled a gun at an area youth sports event.
Parents also scream at coaches and swear at umpires and referees ... setting poor examples for their embarrassed children.
"It seems to be getting worse every year," said David Murphy, who has officiated numerous youth sporting events for more than 35 years. "Parents have become more and more abusive."
Many youth sports leagues have parent codes of conduct, but it doesn't stop everyone.
"A few apples spoil the whole bunch," Murphy said, adding most parents get an A on conduct. "One abusive parent at a ball game and it can ruin the whole ball game."
Most of the time bad parent conduct doesn't escalate into something more, but it has happened.
Lubbock Police Sgt. Ross Hester said police usually arrest two or three parents a year for threatening an official at a sporting event. Those parents get charged with Class B misdemeanor assault charges, an elevated charge because it involves sporting event officials.
The 25-year-old man who pulled out a gun Oct, 18 at the Berl Huffman Athletic Complex faces aggravated assault charges, officials said.
League officials say a few parents each year are escorted off the property during a game because of behavior.
© 2008 , Osprey Media
October 29, 2008
While a group of disgusted parents of young football players and hard-nosed league officials from the Manitoba Minor Football Association squabble over alleged racial slurs and who said what to whom, who heard it, and who did anything about it, a much more critical issue is facing young hockey players in Winnipeg. A steady decline in the number of referees over the past several years has created a crisis set to jeopardize upcoming seasons.
“It’s very tough being a referee. It’s very demanding. These are not professional referees. These are young men and women who are trying to provide a service for the people of Winnipeg and Manitoba,” Doug Lischka, president of the Winnipeg Minor Hockey Association told Sun Media. Two different sports and two different sets of athletes suffering from the same stench: A disrespect for authority and a lack of sportsmanship from the stands, not the ice.
Enough male and female referees and linesmen still exist this season to handle games involving close to 10,500 players, but a lot more than just the tip of this iceberg is showing.
Minor hockey executives blame much of the dwindling numbers on verbal attacks from spectators, aka, parents. Parents in the stands expecting perfection on the ice, not from their offspring but from the men and women with the whistles.
Emotional outbursts at sporting events have been commonplace for decades at hockey rinks and on football fields. The competitive nature of team sport has always fuelled emotion and it’s been “part of the game” for anger to, now and then, get the better of a player or a coach. But rudeness and vulgarity aimed at those enforcing the rules — from the stands and bleechers — is the ugly new reality of youth sports. Referees are simply fed up and who could blame them?
Copyright © 2008
By ABBY SEWELL
October 22, 2008
BARSTOW • Emotions have had time to simmer down since Saturday, when a mass brawl broke out among spectators during a Barstow Youth Football game against a San Bernardino team, ending with one man knocked unconscious, a coach suspended and four people arrested.
Conflicting accounts have placed the blame on both sides. Officials are still piecing together the full story of what happened and trying to find a way to go on with the season, making sure that there is no repeat of Saturday’s events.
“The main thing is that when these players get back out here that they feel good, safe to play,” BYF President Ray Silva said in a meeting between officials and team parents Tuesday.
BYF has already bought orange construction fencing to set up between the field and the spectators’ stands, Silva said. At Tuesday’s meeting, some suggested setting up video cameras and requesting police presence or some type of security at the games.
Silva said that he and BYF board members will make a point of being present at games and will talk to Barstow Police Department about bringing in reserve officers to patrol the last home game before playoffs. In the future, BYF will develop an evacuation drill for dealing with violent situations, to make sure the players are safe, he said.
Barstow head coach Jerry Pinkney, who was cited on suspicion of disturbing the peace for his role in the incident, will be removed from coaching duties until at least next October, said BYF Commissioner Don Depue, who is in charge of handling disciplinary issues for the chapter. Barstow High School head varsity football coach Jose Rubio will take over Pinkney’s position, Silva said.
The fight between Barstow and San Bernardino spectators began after Pinkney reportedly pushed a San Bernardino player while breaking up a scuffle between the San Bernardino boy and Pinkney’s son, a player on the Barstow team. An emotional confrontation between Barstow and San Bernardino coaches and spectators followed the incident, eventually escalating to mass violence.
© 2008 Deseret News Publishing Company
Amy Donaldson
October 21, 2008
The parents sat at tables in the library at Judge Memorial Catholic High School and studied the booklets in front of them.
They'd been asked by Joe Thomas, a presenter for the Positive Coaching Alliance, to divide 100 points among the rewards they hoped their children might gain from playing sports.
Not surprisingly, the No. 1 pick was the hope that their children would have fun participating in high school sports.
Thomas then cited a 1985 study that said 70 percent of the children who play youth sports drop out by age 13. The reason those children quit, he said, was because they weren't enjoying the games anymore.
"Once it becomes like a job," he said, "they lose their motivation."
And then he asked the parents, all of whom voluntarily showed up to learn how to support their children in their athletic endeavors, to consider whether their behavior supported the way they'd divided those points.
"We have a tendency once that ball is thrown out there to forget all about the other lessons we wanted our kids to learn," he said. "We just focus on winning."
Judge administrators have worked with officials from the Positive Coaching Alliance for the last three years in hopes of doing more than encouraging good sportsmanship.
"We hope working with the Positive Coaching Alliance will help define our athletic programs a little more," said Bulldog athletic director Dan DelPorto. "It gives our coaches a model to follow."
DelPorto said it also teaches specific ways parents, players and coaches can focus on what's most important in high school athletics. During two days, Judge administrators and PCA trainers work with coaches, players and parents in separate seminars. They discuss why competition is important and how to try and win games without losing the life-transforming lessons sports teach young people.
"Competition is important," Thomas told the parents. "We all know they're going to have to learn to compete — for jobs, etc., for the rest of their lives."
Copyright © 2008 Cox Ohio Publishing
Tom Archdeacon
October 23, 2008
DAYTON — The University of Dayton football team has given up less than one sack per game this season, but the other night Flyers quarterback Rob Florian — no matter which way he turned, twisted or stretched — found himself hemmed in by two guys from the other team.
Colin Wilson and Zack York of the Monroe Hornets pressed Florian far more than any defender from Davidson, Drake or Central State has been able to do this year.
But then that's what "Tuesday Night Lights" are all about.
Most Tuesday nights of the season, the Flyers invite area youth league teams to join their practices at Welcome Stadium. That's how the Monroe sixth-grade team and the Black Eagles, a flag football team of 7- to 9-year-olds from the Kettering YMCA, found themselves side by side with the college guys Tuesday night, Oct. 21.
"Coach (Rick) Chamberlin gives them a pep talk and then they go on the field and warm up with the team," said Stacey Ferranti, a UD junior who's interning with the athletic department. "It's an opportunity for them to be a part of our family and have fun, too."
And did they ever.
The Hornets — with their gold pants and blue jerseys over their pads — arrived before anyone else, and as soon as they stepped onto the plush, new artificial turf at Welcome, they acted, well, like kids.
Somersaults into the end zone, zig-zagging sprints across the field, whoops, hollers and lots of laughter.
The younger Kettering kids, who play on a grass field next to the YMCA, arrived next and were in awe.
"Most of these kids have never been on turf," said their coach, Scott Saad, a UD middle linebacker himself once. "This is a big thing for them to be inside a college stadium."
They were part of the Flyers fold, as well, said Chamberlin.
"Tonight, you guys aren't just Monroe Hornets or Black Eagles," the coach said in his from-the-heart talk. "You're in our place. You're part of our team. You're Dayton Flyers."
October 6, 2008
By TODD VENEZIA
Your daily caffeine blast from "energy" drinks might be killing you.
A new study says the high-powered drinks have so much of a jolt that the government should put warning labels on them.
"The caffeine content of energy drinks varies over a 10-fold range, with some containing the equivalent of 14 cans of Coca-Cola. Yet the caffeine amounts are often unlabeled, and few include warnings about the potential health risks of caffeine intoxication," Roland Griffiths writes in The Gazette of Johns Hopkins University, where the study took place.
Griffiths and other researchers found that some energy drinks have as much as 500 mg. of caffeine in an 8-ounce can. That compares to 330 mg. in a 16-ounce cup of Starbucks coffee, or 35 mg. in a 12-ounce can of cola.
If drinkers are unaware of just how much caffeine is in their drinks, they run the risk of overimbibing and coming down with caffeine poisoning, the study found.
The symptoms include anxiety, an upset stomach, restlessness and, more seriously, a rapid heartbeat, which could put some people with cardiac problems in life-threatening danger, the report said.
Griffiths said that looking at a store shelf full of energy drinks is confusing because some, such as Red Bull, have a relatively moderate 76 mg. of caffeine, while others have many times that.
"It's like drinking a serving of an alcoholic beverage and not knowing if it's beer or scotch," he told the paper.
Griffiths said energy drinks are made extra troubling when they are mixed with alcohol.
Copyright © 2008 Hudson Valley Media Group
April 29, 2008
Here are two excellent local examples that illustrate both sides of the argument over whether young athletes should specialize in just one sport.
The Case for Specialization
Raina Tawil, Middletown High swimming
Tawil is a sophomore distance swimmer whose parents both swam growing up and put their daughter in the water by 9 months old. She tried gymnastics and karate as a child before participating exclusively in swimming at around 7 years old. She reports no health problems despite swimming about 6,000-7,000 yards daily, six days a week, 11 months of the year.
Tawil, 15, says she's committed to swimming because she loves it and because "I couldn't do anything else." She says she lost interest in swimming briefly a couple years back, but regained her focus and hopes to earn a college scholarship.
"I got my head back in the game," Tawil says. "That's all it was.''
Tawil attributes her healthy outlook to quality coaching. Frank Woodward, who coaches Tawil in high school and at the club level, gives younger swimmers breaks and focuses on keeping the sport fun. In fact his swimmers just took a three-week "vacation" from the sport.
"I think in swimming (specialization) kind of works because their coaches are smart enough to know when to push kids and when to take a break," Woodward says. Woodward and his staff are constantly changing workouts and lightening the load to keep kids interested.
The Three-Sport Star
Marissa Diescher, Livingston Manor soccer, softball, basketball
Diescher, a freshman, can't imagine not playing three sports — softball, soccer and basketball.
She's a standout pitcher on the high school softball team, and just loves all three sports. She was playing travel soccer, her first love, by age 6, and scored 22 goals on the varsity as an eighth-grader. She started working hard as a softball pitcher at age 9. And she's obviously been playing hoops a while, having come off a 397-point season.
Like Tawil, Diescher has benefited from good coaching. Diescher has been free of the pressures that some multi-sport athletes face from coaches demanding the player's time. "They've never really forced me to play" certain sports, she says.
But Diescher knows she will have to pick one sport within a year or two in an attempt to get a college scholarship. She absolutely dreads having to eliminate sports.
"Probably the junior year is when you normally have to,'' she says. "I don't even want to think about it.''
When asked the question: "What threatens your
safety and emotional health?" most kids say, teasing and bullying
(Kaiser Family Foundation & Children Now, 2001). Yet many adults,
even your parents and teachers, may not realize how often you see or
experience bullying at school and elsewhere. Often adults don't see
bullying when it happens. And those adults who see it, and do nothing,
may not understand that kids can be hurt by bullying.
Copyright © 1998 - 2008 Victoria Advocate Publishing Co.
October 12, 2008
BY SONNY LONG
There are few major injuries in youth football, even though the youngest participants are only 6 years old.
David Hartman, president of the Crossroads Youth Football League, said, “Full contact football for 6- and 7-year-olds is safe. There is no safer time to allow them to play. Most of them are not capable of generating a lot of power, and the collisions are not as violent as the bigger guys.”
The CYFL boasts more than 1,200 players this season, representing 10 towns, including Victoria. The CYFL allows ages 6 through 12 to take part.
“We’ve been very fortunate that we average maybe 10 trips to the emergency room a year,” Hartman said.
On Saturday, at Bulldog Stadium in Yoakum, the host Silver Dawgs lined up against the Gonzales Apaches in a Pee Wee, 6- to 7-year-old match up.
Misty Ledlow, whose husband, Chad Ledlow, coaches the Yoakum squad, and whose son, Jayden Roberts, 7, is the starting center, said she feels her son is perfectly safe.
“He loves it,” she said. “He’s always been into watching football. He lives for this. He tried soccer, but he just wasn’t into it.”
A football dad from Gonzales, Brian Gibson watched his 7-year-old son, Seth Gibson, battle the Silver Dawgs.
“I feel like it’s safe,” he said. “He’d been talking about playing for a couple of years. He plays wide receiver, running back and linebacker.”
© 2002-2007 by Johnstown Breeze
October 16, 2008
By Cindy Lawson
As a mother of five and a grandmother of nine, I have been involved with youth sports for more than 30 years.
Over those years, my husband and I have attended and been involved with hundreds of sporting events from tee-ball and flag football to college ball.
We have seen our share of bad calls, poor sports, irate parents, and questionable coaching. But during the same time, we and so many others have volunteered hundreds of hours to give children the positive benefits of sports.
Normally, a bad situation is a one-time event and passed quickly. But I have found this not to be true this fall in our Johnstown-Milliken community youth football program.
It started this year for our family the day the players were to pick up their football equipment.
My 8-year-old grandson, who had had two great and very positive years of flag football, was going to finally get to play tackle football like his cousins were and his dad had. He was so excited!
But, sadly, he was reduced to tears by the man handing the equipment out. Instead of a pat on the helmet and a positive word, what he got were two very rude questions about, didn’t he know how old he was???
I have never heard of anyone being so rude to a small boy who was only there to get his equipment for tackle football he had waited three years to play. This man did not say one positive thing to my grandson or his dad. My grandson was very hurt and disillusioned, and he was not the only one.
© Copyright 2001-2008 The New Era Publishing Co.
October 15, 2008
A letter to the editor from Chanz Keeney a couple of weeks ago was also a statement made by parents across the country. Keeney complained that the emphasis on his second-grade son's flag football team seemed to be more about winning than in about kids learning how to play the sport correctly. Keeney said he reached this conclusion because his son was spending most of the game on the bench.
Most of the complaints about youth sports I have heard over the years as a sports administrator, announcer and journalist, have centered around limited play and lack of learning the game. It is winning the game, the ultimate goal of each team, that seems to be the most important.
Each parent who signs up his child or children to play youth team sports wants them to have the following: Equal playing time; instruction in the sport; having an equal opportunity to play any of the positions of the sport; and a chance to play a position because they earned it by working and practicing hard to be the best, not because they are the coach's or board member's child.
In the lower levels of all sports, the emphasis should be on teaching fundamentals, teamwork and good sportsmanship. Winning the game is not most important.
Copyright © 2008 CanWest Interactive
Rachel Naud
October 02, 2008
Parents -- it's time to go back to the basics.
Our high-tech super-structured life isn't working.
In fact, it's failing our children.
A 2008 report card issued by Active Healthy Kids Canada, a charitable organization and advocate of physical activity for Canadian children and youth, issued children an F in physical activity.
"Based on prevalent data that we have in Canada, 90 per cent of Canadian children are not meeting the current physical activity guidelines," says Rachel Colley, research co-ordinator for Active Kids Canada.
The data utilized to issue the grade came from a survey conducted by the Canadian Fitness and Lifestyles Research Institute (CFLRI).
The CFLRI collected pedometer data on a sample of approximately 6,000 children and youth age five to 19 across Canada, measuring the number of steps kids take in order to assess their activity levels. By examining rates of participation in organized and unorganized physical activities both in and outside of school, the pedometer data found that most children and youth are far below recommended activity levels.
"We know if someone is active and is getting 60 to 90 minutes of activity a day, which is what kids are supposed to be doing, they should be getting an average of 16,500 steps," says Colley. "The average amount of steps children are getting is around 11,500."
It's no surprise with competing factors such as video games, cellphones, computers and TVs, that children are opting for high-tech downtime instead of participating in sports or activities -- which is why Active Kids Canada also issued children an F for the amount of screen time they're getting.
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