I agree that parents need to take responsibility for their kids’ health and happiness, but I would like to say that I see a danger of emphasizing individual responsibility as a way of evading collective responsibility; it is the responsibility of government and of society to create a situation where this is easier than the alternative, in my opinion. There is also the issue of culture: for most Americans particularly, but English people to a lesser extent, the idea of ‘getting fit’ means the gym, which means the treadmill. If you worked in an office all day would you want top spend the evening on a treadmill as well? It’s an exercize in futility!

But the thing I really wanted to say was that I totally agree with encouraging the play of children – I think there comes a time to turn it into training and I also think it can be necessary to make a kid try harder at that time than he wants to at that time. But in general, when I look at children under 5, here’s what I see:
Better flexibility than most adults by a long, long shot. Watch a kid in a supermarket queue, squat walk around her mother’s feet, drop effortlessly into the ‘swastika-legs’ position called ‘Bwiya’ in the stuff I do and crawl out of it without breaking the flow. Most adults couldn’t do this with a gun to their heads. In fact a training system that simply mirrored what healthy children like to do would be A: not as good as a really good training system, and B: a thousand times better than what most people are doing. Most kids can do at least one ‘skin-the-cat,’ and a 10 second handstand. Find that in an average gym? Yours maybe, but the commercial gyms don’t get people there.

Kev.
England UK