Emotive subjects - exercise caution

Promoting fitness, health and physical activity is a hot topic, especially at this time of year when many of us are battling to keep our New Year resolutions.  Such heightened awareness inevitably leads to greater media attention with numerous ‘fitness experts’ offering their opinion on the best ways to achieve your fitness goals in 2013.  Now for the adult population this is fine – we can read what we want to and make informed decisions regarding what is appropriate in the pursuit of health and happiness.  A recent article published in the Times newspaper (a link to the feature can be found here http://thetim.es/13PW3ll ) however chose to deal with the fitness levels, or lack of, amongst a younger population.  The article was entitled ‘How to test your child’s fitness’ and suggested to its readers that even in children as young as 6 years old, fitness levels are ‘woeful’.  Upon reading the article I was concerned enough with the content to contact the newspaper and request the contact details of the author.  Unfortunately at present I have received no reply.  In the following blog I will hopefully explain why some of the recommendations made in the article are grossly inappropriate and highlight the dangers of the publication of such guidelines.

        

The opening paragraph of the article asks concerned parents the question, ‘how fit is your child really?’  It goes on to suggest that although they may appear energetic, modern pursuits mean that most children are appallingly inactive.  This appears to be scare mongering at its best – even if you think that your child is fit and healthy....chances are they aren’t.  The findings are based on research conducted in Central London where the author witnessed a woeful lack of fitness amongst school children.  What may have been of greater use to the interested reader would have been introducing one of the many scientific studies investigating physical activity levels amongst children in the UK (the results from a longitudinal study conducted in Scotland can be viewed here http://1.usa.gov/WfzdP6 .  These are well designed, rigorous and often longitudinal in nature providing accurate information on the health status of children.  The main issue with proposing the ad hoc assessment of fitness within youngsters is that fitness, as a construct, is very difficult to measure.  This is perhaps why the research has focused predominantly on levels of physical activity.  We only need look at the London Olympics to see a myriad of athletes, all fit in their own rite with completely different physical qualities.  Physical activity on the other hand is something that we can measure with a little more accuracy and has fringe benefits of improving self efficacy and mental well being.  So rather than worrying about whether your child is fit, simply ensure that they engage in activities that get them moving and on a regular basis.

My second point is concerned with the contention that we should, as parents, be assessing our child’s fitness.  The aim for any child involved in sport or simply active play is first and foremost enjoyment with movement excellence coming a close second.  This means that they should be able to perform movements in all three planes and through full range of motion with poise, balance and control.  Developing skills in movement excellence ensure children develop a solid base of movement skills which allow them to train more vigorously and intensely as they get older.  The majority of these movement skills will be developed by allowing children to participate in playful activities which involve jumping, skipping, throwing, catching and running without any structured ‘training’ or requirement to test their ‘fitness’   

My final point concentrates on the appropriateness (or otherwise) of the recommended exercises to determine whether your child is in fact fit or not.  There are 10 exercises in total, each with guidelines as to what your child should be able to achieve at different ages – it is this which raises an important question.  How many children has the author assessed in order to generate norms for different ages and what is the variability in day to day performance?  This second point is critical and something which anyone who advocates assessments of physical capacity for children should be aware of.  Physical performance can change from day to day without any real changes in fitness – this is what we call variability.  Any test therefore of physical capacity has to take this into account and state how much change in performance should be apparent before it is accepted as a ‘real change’.  No such recognition of variability is made in the assessments recommended.  Perhaps the most worrying aspect however is the complete inappropriateness of the exercises for children.  In one exercise the author suggests that your child should be able to perform continuous shuttle runs over 20m for 60s, touching the floor at each end and taking between 3-4s to complete each 20m shuttle.  Now to put this into perspective, professional adult footballers with whom I have worked took around 2.5s to cover 15m in an all out sprint from a stationary start.  Take a moment to think about that.  The Times suggest that children should be able to sprint faster than professional adult footballers and not just once, but continually over the course of a minute.  I suspect that few children will score highly in that fitness assessment.  

The most important aspect of sport and/or physical activity, especially where children and adolescents are concerned, is that it be enjoyable.  It is this enjoyment which will foster long term adherence to a lifestyle that promotes healthy choices and the benefits that come with regular and sustained exercise.  It is also worth remembering that we do not necessarily need to be ‘fit’ in the sense promoted in the aforementioned article to reap the benefits of a lifestyle which includes regular physical activity.  In the age old anecdote, a little goes a long way.