Hey Moms and Dads, are you doing the 10,000 steps a day program to maintain your fitness? You might consider buying a pedometer for your kids because according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, boys should be taking at least 11,000 steps a day and girls should be taking 13,000.
Easier Said Than Done
Why do they want kids taking that many steps? Simple, they are doing studies and they found in their sampling of 709 kids, that 30 to 40% of those not getting that many steps a day were overweight. Overweight kids are a big deal in our world, because our kids are locked down more than they are outside and playing.
When I was a kid, we didn’t talk about obesity or worry about it. Not in our kids. The reason behind that was simple, I was outside all the time and so were my friends. It was rare to be in the house and no we weren’t crashed in front of the television because we only had the local stations then and there wasn’t anything on in the afternoons most of the time that was worth staying inside and watching.
Nintendo Wii? Nope. We didn’t even have an Atari or an Intellivision when those came out. We did have a VCR, but we didn’t own a lot of kids based movies. If I was in the house, I was reading a book or playing with toys in my room. If I was outside the house, I was running, playing, riding my bike or hitting the swimming pool.
I cannot imagine having ever traded out those times for a few rounds with the Playstation. But since those weren’t options for me, I’ll never know.
Get Outside
It’s harder now too because I don’t let my daughter go outside without me. If she is outside, so am I – or one of the neighbor parents are. Our world isn’t very trusting and we live not far from a busy street. That being said, if my daughter needs to walk 13,000 steps a day, I’m going to have to look into how many steps she’s walking now because I honestly have no idea.
What about you?