There is no doubt that there has been a considerable shift in the behaviour in the school children today. Compare to the parents, who likely have grown up predominantly in environments with plentiful of physical activities; modern day children have a higher statistical rate of leading sedentary lifestyles. This essay explores just how much “less active” the current school children are compared to their parents.
Unlike many parents whose upbringing have revolved around conventional leisure such as parks, bikes or sports, in an internet enabled world, children these days have much broader options. From my observation, one of the striking trends is that the explosion of online gaming in the recent years are luring away children from physical leisure and pulling them further indoors. As a result of such shift, for some children, internet has occupied most, if not all of their time which lead to them live in an environment that is heavily sedative.
On the opposite of the spectrum, there has been a renewed interest in health and fitness in the last couple years, with a record number of students taking initiative to get started with sports and exercises. A recent study published by Scientific America has revealed that with heavy promotion on student discount going around, a staggering 81% of participants in school age are a member of a club of some sort, such as sports, gym or other recreational clubs. Therefore, there has been an upsurge of participation in physical and outdoor activities in these school kids.
In the light of the discussion above, it can be concluded that some kids definitely spend their time indoor more than ever before; however, many others are still engaged with an active lifestyle.
