Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Kids are paying the price for reckless land use


From KFVS-12 -- Children across the globe can't run as far or as fast as their parents did at their age, according to new research.

In a one-mile footrace, a kid today would finish a minute and a half behind a typical child from 1975, said study lead author Grant Tomkinson, a senior lecturer in the University of South Australia's School of Health Sciences.

"We all live in an environment that's toxic for exercise, and our children are paying the price," Tomkinson said.

Children today are about 15 percent less aerobically fit than their parents were as youngsters, Tomkinson and his colleagues discovered. In the United States it's even worse -- kids' heart endurance fell an average 6 percent in each of the three decades from 1970 to 2000.

These levels of fitness in childhood will more than likely result in worse health in adulthood, Tomkinson said. Kids will have weaker hearts and thinner bones, and an overall lower quality of life.  [keep reading ...]

Poster's note: Check out my favorite book on this topic, "The Geography of Nowhere".

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