Parents prevent children walking to school
Thursday May 22nd, 2014
Children are missing out on valuable exercise because their parents prefer their youngsters to get the bus or to be driven to school, researchers warn today.
Dr
David Rowe, a Reader in exercise science in the University of Strathclyde’s
School of Psychological Sciences and Health, said his research into children’s
school commuting habits indicated that parents need to be convinced as
much as the youngsters about the benefits of walking or cycling to school.
Assessing 166 children whose average age was nine and 143 parents, as part of the wider Strathclyde Evaluation of Children’s Active Travel (SE-CAT), he found that in the overwhelming majority of cases, parents were the main decision makers in how the youngsters travelled.
Some children were placed in an intervention group and were encouraged to cycle and walk more, while a control group were asked to continue with their normal journeys.
Although colder weather in autumn and winter led to a drop in the number of children who walked and cycled in both groups, it was less marked in the intervention group.
“Exercise is an indispensable part of children’s health and wellbeing and is vital in tackling the increasing obesity problem worldwide,” said Dr Rowe, who presented the research at the Global Summit on the Physical Activity of Children in Toronto, Canada, yesterday (21 May).
“The journey between school and home provides an ideal opportunity for physical activity but it is by no means always taken.
“It may be that parents want their children to travel by car or bus for their safety. This is perfectly understandable but it also means that they can miss out on a great deal of beneficial physical activity and it could be that the children want to walk or cycle themselves.”
Around half of the children walked to school, while just over half walked home. The children walked for an average of 1,627 steps- around one mile- a day.
Dr Rowe added: “We would recommend that measures aimed at increasing walking to school should be targeted not only to older children, who may be in a position to make their own decisions, but also to parents of younger children, as they will have the final say on how their child travels.”
Tags: Child Health | Fitness | UK News
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