Make a move

Calling parents to active duty

AWorld Health Organisation study shows . . . (oh heck, what is it this time?) . . . nine out of 10 of our teens aren’t active enough. Enough, in this context, means just that single hour of actual exercise a day, sufficient to do them a world of good.

Instead we rank 138 out of 146 countries studied when it comes to the markers of unhealthy indolence. Bad as that looks, we can helpfully add it’s worse when you consider the study had chastening results for the great majority of those countries. We’re at the wrong end of a dismal spectrum.

News this may be. Surprising, it isn’t. We’re already up to our expanding waists in hard, or congealing, evidence that we have a heaving health problem. One in eight of our kids is obese. Not in the wonky way that contrived to have Richie McCaw categorised as such, but the truly problematic way that will assail prospects of long and passably healthy lives.

The WHO report calls for urgent policy action. Of course. The Government does have a key role in identifying and empowering good ideas and, to that end, this year’s Budget touted a $47 million programme to promote healthy eating and physical activity. But it doesn’t suffice to see the Government as the core agent of change. Important as political prioritisations are, the truly essential solutions aren’t going to be the result of politicians getting stuff right. Expect our state to be helpful, rather than creative.

The report emphatically and expectably attributes youthful inertia to too much screen time. Few would disagree. In fact the corporate world is tapping into this concern. It’s been hard to miss heavily advertised Spark teasers for an initiative, still under development, for a Bluetoothenabled rugby ball that tracks minutes of active playtime and connects to an app that converts this to a screentime allowance, alerting parents when this runs out.

Call this a gimmick by all means. If you’re feeling uncharitable you might rank it alongside junkfood outlets identifying themselves as ‘‘part of a balanced diet’’. The fact remains there’s nothing inherently wrongheaded, let alone ill-intentioned, about the case for balanced recreation to come via the digital world itself, rather than relentlessly from the hectoring of adults from outside it.

Interestingly, Spark’s own marketing makes the point to parents that its device would serve as ‘‘a positive tool for conversations around screen time’’ and that, even then, children often repeat what they see, not what they’re told.

This would be true. Neither gizmos nor governments can take the essential leadership role that parents need to fill, both by example and participation.

Schools aren’t a substitute for that. They’re among the legitimate conduits for the state and its agencies to play their part in health education, but indolence is generally entrenched at home and needs to be addressed there.

Parents know this. Also, perhaps, that they so often don’t have their own act together.

Cue guilt about the past and dread about what might now be required.

The single greatest encouragement to counter this is to be found in the surprisingly corrective and empowering results of a moderate approach to exercise.

It’s remarkable how available, achievable, and generally enjoyable so many of the recreational activities we need to take to lighten and lengthen our time on this planet prove to be.

Including families enjoying being families.

Neither gizmos nor governments can take the essential leadership role that parents need to fill ...