Families fighting the flab by keeping fit together
It sounds like a special kind of torture, but Charlotte Lytton finds the families spending the Easter break working out together – and relishing the competition
Poised on an exercise mat in a darkened studio with pumping music, performing as many ab crunches as possible within a 45-second window – 15-year-old Amber Jackson is, by virtue of ditching screen time for working up a sweat, spending her Easter break more productively than most teenagers. And she has her parents to thank: not just for promoting an active lifestyle, but for turning up to exercise with her, too.
The prospect of burpees en famille might sound like a special kind of torture. Yet the open expanse of the Easter break means parent-child workouts are flourishing: it was this time last year that Amber and her mother Lucy Brodie, 52, began attending classes together at Kobox, a studio with several London outposts delivering hybrid boxing/highintensity workouts. In term-time, Amber exercises with her mother or father, Tosca, twice a week; that ramps up over Easter, during which Kobox also puts on child-only classes.
But working out among peers would remove the competitive element family fitness provides: Amber “loves the competitive aspect and trying to beat me,” Lucy says, adding that they have spotted fellow schoolmates and parents battling one another to be fittest there, too.
Pitting parent against sprog is crucial at Burnr in Mill Hill, north London, where generation-gap workouts are so popular that the spin studio has gone from two to three dedicated classes each week, with a further two on the roster during school holidays. As well as ramping up performance, these Spin Off sessions “create a real sense of camaraderie”, explain Danielle Gabay and Tim Mercer, the studio’s founders. “It’s great to see families doing something fun, social and healthy together and is really rewarding for us when parents tell us it has helped them bond with their daughter or son.”
More than a fifth of 11 to 15-yearolds in England are now classed as obese – proportionally higher than in the US – while rates among children in their final year of primary school are currently at a record high of 20 per cent.
And, as highlighted in the Telegraph’s new Girls, Inspired campaign, only eight per cent of girls aged 11 to 18 undertake the recommended daily hour of activity, with lack of confidence being one of the chief reasons for their disaffection with taking part.
Working out at Kobox together has been “really good for her confidence”, Lucy says of her daughter, who has been spurred on by the studio’s encouraging trainers. “Amber is extremely shy, but at that age where she’s become body-conscious.”
The Easter holidays can be tricky to navigate healthily: unless your family is the type to spend the break hiking in the Scottish hillside or flitting from obstacle course to kayak on a Center Parcs-style activity trip, finding reasons to get everyone up and out, rather than chomping through another Creme Egg, is no mean feat. Leisure time increasingly involves food or screens: classes, then, are not only a “low-cost babysitting service”, but “something fun and both physically and mentally stimulating and beneficial to get teens off the couch and their phones”, Gabay and Mercer say.
That shared endorphin hit “also helps to cement the feelgood element of doing something together” – a sense of goodwill that most families wouldn’t pass up. For Matthew and Natalie Jackson, who attended Burnr’s adult classes and sent their 15 and 12-year-old daughters to those for under-18s, Spin Off made perfect sense. “It’s an incredibly positive way of spending time together and leading a healthy life,” Matthew,
43, says, adding that exercising as a family should “absolutely” be encouraged. They took their 10-yearold along for the first time recently: he will be attending more during the school break, enthused by the “fun environment” and playlists, which they all discuss afterwards. Whether it’s a relative or friend, “you’re much more likely to commit to a class” if you have someone to do it with, the Burnr ethos goes. And this communal element is crucial, says Dr Rangan Chatterjee, GP and author of The Stress Solution, because individual motivation is often a major barrier to making healthy choices. Studies show that our innate desire to compare ourselves to our peers means we are more likely to live well if
‘Kids don’t really do what you tell them to do – they do what they see you do’
those around us do, too – if the whole family embraces an active routine, then, it’s easier for us to stick with.
This much is true for the Chatterjees. Three years ago their son, then five, spotted a poster for Junior Parkruns (a weekly 2km course) in their local Wilmslow park: Dr Chatterjee and his son began attending as a pair until his daughter was old enough to join in. “Initially, my wife wasn’t that keen and just came along [to watch], but it’s got her running now, and it’s motivating her to get fitter. You help to motivate each other.”
The four of them are so committed that these weekly fitness bursts have become “a family institution”, Dr Chatterjee says. “It’s completely changed the landscape of our weekend. Instead of moping around on a Sunday morning, we’re out in the fresh air for the 9:30am start time: it’s got a routine and a rhythm to it.”
Their local Cheshire crowd usually reaches 50-100 people, and Parkrun’s motto – “It’s a run, not a race” – demonstrates the accommodating atmosphere it engenders. Many of the children walk the course, rather than running it, and the Chatterjees often spot schoolmates and friends from local clubs en route.
“Kids don’t really do what you tell them to – they’ll do what they see you do,” Dr Chatterjee says. “If I want them to be active, it’s best to all be active together.”