How Youth Sports Fights Obesity
Obesity is ruining young children and sport is one of the cures for the fat child
As captain of the school team, my future was bright.
I was the one everyone knew and liked. I was the joint tallest in my class and the most talented. Plus, I had a good personality. Added to that, I loved sport and was good at it.
Then there was Dermot.
He was massive and he didn’t play sport in school.
Just as tall as me, but taking up more width and depth.
As I hung by the classroom radiator against the window and waited for the gang to sit and warm themselves, my wandering eye would glance towards this very quiet lad whose school shirt bulged tightly under his jumper. It was quickly becoming too short due to its elasticity covering up his ever-growing stomach.
Although we knew at the time that he was overweight, we didn’t have a clue that he was actually in the ‘obese’ category.
Back then, we never knew the meaning of the word.
There we were in our final year of primary school looking forward to transitioning to another school, and we were all fit, smart, and well.
Most of us were, anyway. Dermot was the only one out of hundreds in that school that I can ever recall being obese. That was the early 1990s. Then, every child I knew had some interest in a sport or an activity.
But Dermot was different.
The problems with fat kids:
Things are very different these days.
There is a pediatric obesity epidemic among youth in the United States. The future health of adults in the country is measured by a ticking time bomb for the US health system. From 1963 to 1970 there has been approximately a 5%
increase in the prevalence of pediatric obesity. But, within one year from 2003 to
2004, there was a 17% increase (Sports med today, 2019).
Why the problem?:
Obesity in children arises from both environmental and genetic causes. When you consider that you’ll begin to figure out that the present-day parents who have been obese themselves as children are more than likely to continue the cycle of pediatric obesity with their children.
A diagnosis of obesity depends on a child’s basic metabolic index (BMI), age, and gender.
Not only do children who are obese suffer from being fatter than others but they have lower self-esteem too. Depression can result from their perception that they or others dislike their bodies. Harsh experiences like bullying, negative stereotyping, and discrimination can occur.
Yet, obesity in children can be avoided and even reversed. Having a well-balanced diet and becoming more physically active means that bodies can change their shapes.
Sport as a solution:
Sport helps heals fat lives.
It’s that simple.
But, and here’s the ‘but’, it cannot do it on its own.
The proof that sport is the solution to pediatric obesity:
Sport provides exercise but the young person must commit to the sport and practice at it to expect an improvement in their body shape.
In a study to measure the role of organized youth sports in reducing the trends of childhood obesity they discovered that although sports can provide an activity for young people to exercise, there is a lot of downtime in practice sessions that are also sedentary (Cohen, Wegis, Dutto,& Bovbjerg, 2019).
So although good parents have children that are overweight and are approaching obese levels, bringing them to play sport once a week is not good enough to fight against their growing waistlines.
Just as more food was eaten, more work has to be done.
Is it the youth sports’ coaches fault that the children are obese?:
In general, your average youth sports coach and their organizations are intent on training the children and young people to understand and be skilled at playing their sport. As a byproduct of the youngsters’ participation in their sport they realize that the children will be exercising and socializing with others. This is not something they really try to concentrate on promoting, as the games usually dictate that this often happens automatically.
Youth sports coaches are not qualified to tackle the obesity crisis and it’s simply not their intention to try to help it.
But, that doesn’t mean sport is not the answer. It is a big piece of the jigsaw that will help heal the effects of obesity in children.
But it needs to be used as a reward for a child’s weekly physical work.
A true athlete is not obese:
There are great tales of the home run hero Babe Ruth batting balls all around the ballpark with ease. For sure, he was a great baseballer but, he was also very overweight. During his playing days, it’s said that he was almost 6 ‘ 2’’ tall and weighed in at 216 pounds. When the BMI calculator is used Ruth is considered to have a BMI of 27.7.
It even advises on what to do next to lose that weight.
The calculator states that a man of these proportions should aim to lose 5% of their current weight through a combination of exercise and a better diet.
Daily, there should be a calorie intake for this person between 2279 and 2930 kcal, and that they should aim to lose 1 to 2 pounds every week.
In the case of Babe Ruth, it was well known that he had a bad diet. He even died from throat cancer. Ruth smoked a lot and overate regularly. He lived to the age of 53 only.
The sporting solution to pediatric obesity:
If parents want to blindly expect that sport is going to cure obesity for the child on its own then they are on the wrong track completely.
Ultimately, those parents have to change the diet of their child and begin to discuss with them what sport they really want to play.
Most young people who enjoy participating in sport enjoy playing it. But if a child is obese they may not enjoy playing.
Sport needs to be seen as a treat at the weekend for those that are working hard, exercising, and eating well all week. For sport gives you much more than a couple of moments of a sugary or savory taste in your mouth.
It makes you feel energized to want to continue to improve.
Just ask my old classmate Dermot.
Because of the hundreds of students in our school, as a child he was the only one in the obese category when all the rest played sport.
Yet, twenty years later he was the only one that was playing professional sport.
If you are obese as a child, you can still be the best sportsperson; it’s just up to you to want it more.
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