Children’s health on slippery slope

Kids in South Africa could be headed down a slippery slope to obesity, diabetes and serious bodily injuries if something drastic is not done to curb the trend, and the sad reality is that most parents don’t have decent medical aid for themselves or their children and when you are in a situation of not “maybe” but “when” will it occur, it can devastate a family.

According the Healthy Active Kids South Africa Reports Card (HAKSA) one in four pre-schoolers are overweight/ obese, while one in five are stunted. More than half of schoolchildren who are tested are below average in motor control skills and motor proficiency is linked to academic performance.

To further add salt to the wounds of the epidemics facing South African children, less than half play sport and few do physical education at school and if schools offer PT sessions then it is limited to one 45-minute session a week.

Things are not looking too great on the health and physical side for children and in another recent research article that came out of the British Journal of Sports Medicine raised concerns of the increase of ACL injuries in children.

The ACL is one of the four ligaments that hold the knee in place. The other ligaments are the medial collateral (MCL), lateral collateral (LCL) and posterior cruciate ligament (PCL). Just know that these are the ligaments that prevent your knee from going one way and your body the other when changing direction, stopping or pushing off. When young athletes tear their ACL or other ligaments, this could lead to early osteoarthritis and more complications in later adulthood.

ACL tend to occur during a directional change of movement and hyper extension of the knee. Signs that your ACL has gone, is experiencing a loud “popping” sensation in the knee, severe pain and inability to continue with your activity, according to knee specialist Doctor Daniel Nunes from Morningside Mediclinic. Dr Nunes further explains that the primary cause is due to the imbalance of the quad muscles in relation to the hamstrings. The quads tend to be stronger than the hamstrings which pulls the tibia forward, placing tremendous force on the knee and could result in injury

You don’t have to look too far to realise how research data can correlate.

Advanced Sports Performance is in a fortunate position to have assessed thousands of young athletes over the past 15 years and the type of athletes who come to us are more driven, love their sport, play two to three sports a year so they are not your typical couch potatoes, “addicted to my cell phone” type child. The scary statistic is that from our data more than 70% of these “active athletes” have lower body strength weaknesses when assessing. Now you can just imagine how bad the inactive children would score.

If something drastically is going to be done, the first people who need to be accountable are parents. You, and you alone, are responsible for your child’s future and this means making sure your child is developing the way he should. The next group of people who need to get their act together are the principals at schools. They can blame government all they want and blame how little money their school has for PT teachers. If they are going to point fingers and jump on the blame game then those fingers first need to point inwards.

The chief of Discovery, Adrian Gore, is responsible for his company and the direction it takes. The mandate starts with him and then his troops carry out his vision. School principals need to follow suit and lead from the front. To date Vitality under Dr Craig Nossel has one of the most comprehensive children’s schools programme to date and available for download and best of all, for free. Go to vitalityschools.co.za to kickstart health and well-being.