A depressing study
by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) revealed Wednesday that kids’
activity levels drop dramatically between the ages of 9 and 15, with the
majority of children failing to meet their daily recommended activity levels.

The Department
of Health and Human Services recommends that kids be active for at least an
hour every day – walking, jogging, cycling, swimming, basketball, etc. The
NIH’s long-term study showed that at 9 years old, children average around three
hours of “vigorous physical activity” each day, but by 15, kids are averaging
only 49 minutes during weekdays and 35 minutes on weekends.

Some of the study’s suggestions to help kids be more active
included encouraging local government officials to offer biking and walking
trails for kids to use to get to and from school each day. They also encourage
families to take evening walks together and weekend bicycle rides.

Commenters
on this story at ABC News suggested that kids spend too much time playing
video and computer games, and also that kids need to do more house and yard
work. The
Chicago Tribune also attributes the problem to schools dropping
recess. But what about where we live? Smart Growth America has
repeatedly linked suburban sprawl to lack of activity, obesity and other health
programs to children and adults. They affirm that people need to live in
communities designed to be walkable and that foster easy ways to sneak in
physical activity. It isn’t enough to blame kids’ laziness on Nintendo; we have
to think about why kids can’t, or don’t, go outside anymore.