Photo: Frazzled Jen / Flickr

A new study has found that the shift away from playing outdoors to indoor activities like playing videogames is making our children physically weak. British 10-year-olds can do significantly fewer sit-ups than the generation before them could, their arm strength has dropped by 26 per cent, and one in 10 can’t hold their weight hanging from wall-bars.

The study

Fitness expert Dr Sandercock and his team tested the strength of a group of 315 10-year-olds in Essex in 2008 against 309 children of the same age in 1998.

It was found that while the children have the same height to weight ratio, this generation’s children are less muscular, weaker and unable to do some tasks that previous generations could do easily.

Between 1998 and 2008 the number of sit-ups 10-year-olds could do decreased by 27.1 per cent. Besides a drop in arm strength, grip strength lowered 7 per cent and the number of children who couldn’t hold their weight hanging from wall-bars doubled.

Changing activity patterns

Dr Gavin Sandercock, lead author, says that these findings are ‘probably due to changes in activity patterns among English 10-year-olds, such as taking part in fewer activities like rope-climbing in PE and tree-climbing for fun.’

‘Typically, these activities boosted children’s strength, making them able to lift and hold their own body weight.’

These results echo those of previous studies, which also found that children are becoming less fit as they became more sedentary.

Knocking the sap out of our children

Tam Fry of the Child Growth Foundation says: ‘Climbing trees and ropes used to be standard practice for children, but school authorities and “health and safety” have contrived to knock the sap out of our children.’

‘Falling off a branch used to be a good lesson in picking yourself up and learning to climb better. Now fear of litigation stops the child climbing in the first place.’

Tags: keeping fit, Parenting