How
to Make It Fit:
Ideas
for Keeping the Family Active
Experts make the following
suggestions for families who want to fit in fitness:
>> Build exercise into
the existing routine. Park a greater distance from the entrance to the
mall. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. At a soccer game, walk around
the field rather than sitting. Walk the dog.
>> Think of easy, fun activities.
Teach each other a dance. Hang a rope from a tree to swing from. Take a
ball to the park and make up a game.
>> Give "active" gifts. Sure,
lots of kids want video games and CDs, but think about gifts that will
make them more active: running shorts or shoes, a bicycle, Nerf or
Koosh ball.
>> Let children set the pace
and make choices. Go by their tempo. Let them select a course or an activity
on a family outing choosing from among, say, hiking or biking or running.
Make it fun, by including another activity, such as tossing a ball while
running.
>> Rinks. Weather got you
down? Check out the roller and ice-skating rinks. Or get to a local gym,
play soccer on the basketball court, do tumbling on the apparatus or
make up a game.
>> Equipment. When you buy
strollers, look for big wheels and strong frames that can withstand more
ambitious outings. (For jogging, special strollers are necessary.) For
younger family members unable to do as much as you, there are backpacks,
bike trailers and bike seats. When ready, they can go part of the way on
their own steam.
>> Adapt games. A preschooler
can learn to dribble a basketball and shoot it through a hoop you form
with your own arms. In a casual softball game, a toddlerc an run the bases
with you. You can play football they tackle you, but you only tag them.
>> Limit family television
time. Studies have shown a correlation between amount of television viewing
and performance on aerobics tests. People who watch less tend to be more
active.
>> Design a physical activity
around homework. If the homework involves math, incorporate that into the
activity counting steps or trees, for example. If it's American history,
take a walk around historic sites like Civil War battlefields or downtown
monuments. If it's biology, identify trees, birds and animals while out
walking.
>> Don't be afraid to try
new activities yourself. You may look foolish, but it's good for children
to see you trying new things and floundering.
>> Revive games from your
own childhood. Remember Red Light, Green Light? Duck, Duck, Goose? When
was the last time you played catch with a Frisbee?
>> Take a brisk walk before
homework or making dinner. Chances are the evening will go smoother, and
both your and your kids' moods will be lighter.
Don't
Tell the Kids, Show Them
Dont just tell
your children about the importance of fitness, show them.
This quiz will give you an idea how well
youre doing.
1. Are you available for scheduled family
fitness outings?
2. Do you remind your children to exercise
at a particular time?
3. Do you monitor your children's exercise
progress?
4. Do you exercise with your children?
5. Do you reward your children for a fitness
activity well done?
6. Do you monitor how much TV your children
watch?
7. Do you encourage your children to participate
in sports?
8. Do you budget money to buy fitness equipment
for your children?
9. Do you discuss your children's physical
education activities?
Adapted with permission from: "Your
Child's Fitness: Practical Advice for Parents," by Susan Kalish, executive
director, American Running Association
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Family
Fit
On
vacation or at home, schedules are difficult and the excuses are easy.
But some parents and kids still manage to stay active -- and healthy --
and together.
Only months after her birth, my daughter
Serena became the youngest guest at a backcountry lodge deep in the wilderness
of Glacier National Park in Montana. I'd carried her, a warm tiny ball
in a Snugli, across miles of rugged alpine trail. Baby on front, pack on
back. I looked like a camel.
During those sublime days of unfailing
submission to father's will, Serena would accompany me jogging. Within
the denim cocoon strapped across my chest, she'd snooze along the route
between home and fitness center. Once the Snugli grew too tight, I bolted
a seat onto my Trek racing bike. Most mornings I'd buckle Serena
in, pedal the two miles over what we called
"bumpity bumps" to her day care, and then, freed of my cargo, ride another
10 to my office at Metro Center.
My daughter watched as I did laps in the
pool, then learned to swim early herself. Soon she biked ever-longer lengths
of the Mount Vernon and WO&D trails. She hiked, eventually carrying
her own pack.
In those early days, I was determined:
Parenthood wouldn't change a thing, I vowed. I'd keep active, and my offspring
would follow suit. Together, we'd value exercise, fitness and the out-of-doors.
I wouldn't become one of those postpartum couch ornaments. Not me. No way.
This is called "denial."
How Boom Went Bust
To hear the experts tell it, America is
in a fitness crisis. And those aging baby boomers, now less fleet of foot,
are leading the slow-motion shuffle to the Barcalounger. The same folks
who spawned jogging and aerobics mania then conceived more literally
only to run head-on into a wall of reality, the one called Family Responsibility.
And now, at midlife, they've become too harried by careers and kids to
resume the good race, too aware of their gathering bulk to haul it around
great distances or display it on the field. Instead, they take dietary
supplements and fret from the couch.
Whereupon, wouldn't you know it, the kids
finally decide to see them as role models.
"The baby boomers have stopped exercising,"
laments Kenneth H. Cooper, a legend for his contributions to the understanding
of cardiovascular health, a physician whose work helped turn on Americans
to aerobic exercise in the 1980s. "And what's worse, after about 1990,
they not only stopped setting the example they stopped encouraging their
kids to participate with them."
The lifestyle trends are well-established
and much-reported: Kids are less active at home (TV, computers) and at
school (only one state, Illinois, mandates daily physical education) and
in between (fewer kids walk to school or play outside anymore). For parents,
commutes to work have lengthened while yardwork and
housework, once among the few things that
kept adults physically active, are increasingly hired out or ignored. Remote
controls and Internet links deliver a world of entertainment to the inert.
Of the nation's children, only half regularly
engage in physical activity. One in every four boys and girls engages in
no exertion at all. Contrasted with a decade ago, today's typical child
is five pounds fatter; one in five children is obese. Running a mile takes
him or her a full minute longer. The diseases of poor diet and exercise
that are prematurely killing and compromising the life quality of parents
; clogged arteries, high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis, depression
are now showing
up in children at ages previously unimagined.
On the parental side, it's no better. According
to a recent national study, only 42 percent of mothers of children in grades
one through four got even moderate physical activity, and only 48 percent
of fathers. One in four adults is obese, and nearly half of adults are
overweight or worse. A 1996 consensus panel of the
National Institutes of Health reported
that 12 percent of all U.S. deaths were from causes that could have been
prevented with even moderate physical activity.
The U.S. Surgeon General reports that 60
percent of adults don't get enough physical activity to benefit their health.
"If lack of activity were an infectious
disease with these same kinds of numbers and health consequences, this
would be a big deal," said James Hill, a nutrition physiologist at the
University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. "If I were going to change
one thing in the population, the biggest bang for the buck in terms of
health would be to get the population
to be more physically active."
Research demonstrates that children who
are exposed to exercise early in life are more likely to continue for the
rest of their lives. Unfortunately, the opposite is true, too. And so Harold
Kohl, an epidemiologist at the Atlanta-based International Life Sciences
Institute, a nonprofit research foundation, urges parents to "be physically
active with your kids as much for their sake as your own."
"The tragedy is that once people have children
they think exercise has to stop and that it's okay for it to stop," observes
Charles Kuntzleman, director of the Fitness for Youth program at the University
of Michigan. "It's almost as if parents' mind-set is that kids can always
pick it up later. But by 12 or 13, a kid is either
turned on or turned off ; to physical
activity, and that [usually] determines how things will go in adulthood.
As the twig is bent, so grows the child."
Cooper has now turned his attention away
from adults and toward children. He wants to help protect them from obesity,
heart disease and cancer.
"If the 21st century is to be free of cardiovascular
threats," he cautions in a new book, "Fit Kids," "we must concentrate on
the health of our children now." In his book, Cooper discusses activities
targeted to kids' various developmental stages and strategies to keep them
active & including "fitness contracts" for both parents and kids,
and dealing with what Cooper calls "the adolescent slump," when many kids
become inactive.
The current recommendations of the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), bolstered by more than a decade
of research, call for children and adults to get around 30 minutes of moderate
physical activity almost every day, not necessarily all in a single session
or activity. Still, only 22 percent of adults meet the
CDC standards; 54 percent do some but
not enough. Twenty-four percent are completely sedentary. The numbers are
only fractionally better for kids.
To hear many householders talk about it,
the problem isn't just knowledge and motivation; it's time. "The only people
I know who get regular exercise don't have
kids," laughs Jill Dickey, a Bowie mother
of three. She and her husband, Michael, used to go dancing and hiking often.
"These days we have a running argument
about whether housework counts as exercise,"
she says. "I contend it's a workout, just not very recreational."
Indeed, as my own daughter got older and
was joined by a sister, time seemed to grow scarcer. It was all her mother
and I could do to keep our own fitness
regimens going, much less plan activities
together. First we started exercising in shifts, drawing up elaborate schedules,
juggling responsibilities and apportioning our
lives into smaller pieces. There was homework,
there were piano lessons. There were bills, child care messes, those darned
day jobs. Granted, we signed up the
girls for the customary team sports of
modern suburbia, soccer and softball. I even coached for a few years. We
enrolled them in swimming classes. We did the
dutiful things. But when it came to exercise,
mostly we went our separate ways and fought a losing battle to maintain
some level of personal activity.
After I became a single parent, time grew
more precious still. Liana was too young to do what Serena and I might
do together. And time with the girls seemed too
precious to spend on something as mundane
as a jog. My own exercise started to feel selfish, a denial of my children's
needs. Sometimes I'd take my daughters to
the gym and they'd do homework, sketch
or watch television while I hastily – and with increasing guilt
– lifted weights or ran on the treadmill. "Do I
have to go?" Serena would ask. The snack
machine was becoming Liana's favorite thing about the gym.
Then I got this assignment.
Making the Family Fit
I was dispatched to find people who were
able to keep fitness and physical activity in their families' schedules.
Families that played together and stayed together.
People who were fighting those two forces
that seem to multiply at midlife, inertia and gravity.
It turns out there are plenty of examples,
all over the Washington area. Some parents are persevering on their own,
as I had done, while others are taking advantage
of family-friendly places, programs and
equipment. Some patronize health clubs or community centers that offer
special sessions for family workouts. Some visit
special activity centers, like batting
cages or indoor climbing walls. Others play organized sports together.
And an inspiring number just freelance, managing to work
a bunch of different recreational activities
into their very crowded lives.
Consider the case of 32-year-old Rebecca
Xu, a harried World Bank investment officer from China who navigates the
Crescent Trail in Bethesda with her
3-year-old, Lauren, whom she pushes ahead
of her in a jogger. I spotted Xu on her regular Sunday morning run, despite
freezing temperatures, a stiff wind and a
threateningly leaden sky. "I actually
exercise more nowadays," Xu said exuberantly.
"It's a family gathering time," added husband
Jeff Luo, running alongside. As a high-tech executive, he said, "I travel
a lot and we don't have much time during the
weekdays. So it's nice for us to run and
talk together as a family."
But how does Xu do it, with such a busy
life and a traveling husband? Isn't there always a house to clean or bills
to pay or something?
"Pay the bills online," she says. I laugh.
"No, I'm serious. I save so much time."
I still think she's joking, or maybe making a pitch for her husband's company.
"No, really. Be efficient. Find things that can be
done by technology or other people and
thus save time to do things that only you can do like being with your
kids." She has a nanny and arranges to do some of
her take-home professional work on weekends,
after running. "That way," she says, "I can have the comfort of knowing
I can take Lauren [on her runs] and do the
other things at other times."
Or consider the case of Alberto Martinez,
a 47-year-old eye surgeon from Kensington, who skates twice every week
at the Cabin John ice rink with his son, John,
age 7, and daughter, Katherine, 12. Each
Sunday, ice time is set aside for families who belong to the Washington
Figure Skating Club, which allows anyone to join,
no matter how wobbly or inexperienced.
Martinez twirls to a stop. "It's fun, fun,
fun," he says. "I have a very intense life – lots of stresses
– and this is a relief. It gives me that great feeling of
gliding, like cheating gravity. I stay
fit. And best of all, I'm with my family. Can you think of a better way
to spend time and connect with your family?"
Katherine agrees. "Everybody should do
this. Some of my friends' parents aren't like my dad, and they'll be more
prone to diseases. It's important to be fit. Plus"
here her voice drops into a conspiratorial
whisper "this puts off homework a little bit. But when I do it, I concentrate
better."
Jean Martinez, Alberto's wife, says the
key for her family was to make a commitment to an activity reasonably close
to home the rink is only 15 minutes away.
"You make sure the hours and location
work for you, that it's convenient. Then you pay the fee. If you don't
have something organized for a certain time, you tend
not to do it. But once you sign up, you
tend to stick to it," she said.
For members of the Anderson family, fitness
seems to be part of everything they do. Their lifestyle includes daily
runs and monthly contra dancing traditional jigs
and reels sponsored at various locations
around Frederick by the Frederick County Folk Arts Council. Art Anderson
and his wife, Julane, have been bringing their
16-year-old daughter, Phoebe, to the dances
since she was 4.
"People come dressed to sweat –
not for a casual evening. It's pretty aerobic," says Art, a scientist and
ethicist at the military research institute at Fort Detrick.
"And it's a way to be together and connect
with other people. Touching hands, swinging around, meeting people there's
a sense of community that people are
missing."
The Andersons also hike the Appalachian
Trail regularly and run competitive races for charities. The bike rack
stays affixed to the family car. Nor are their vacations
sedentary. They go scuba diving in the
Caribbean. They've kayaked France's Dordogne region.
Julane says their secret to fitting in
fitness is simple: "We want to and if you really want to do something,
it becomes a priority."
Well, I say. A lot of us really want to.
Doesn't mean we do.
"If you really do, you will," she says,
without missing a beat. "Put it on your calendar. Once you do that, it
becomes a commitment."
Just Us Volks
Some people prefer to draw on an established
organization to structure their fitness. Carroll Mitchell, a computer analyst
from Arlington, takes her nephew,
10-year-old Cooper, on Volksmarch walks.
His mother is too busy and Mitchell has no children of her own, so she
enjoys spending time with her nephew, often on
the group's organized adventures.
Volksmarch, launched in Germany as a community
and social group as much as an exercise mode, boasts that it is devoted
to physical fitness "for all ages." Walks
are held regularly throughout the region;
participants receive coins for completing walks and books in which to record
and map their ventures. Everybody goes at his
own pace, and barbecue grills sizzling
with wurst not precisely a health food, but let it pass often greet
them at the finish line.
One recent frosty morning, Mitchell and
her nephew were hiking an 11-kilometer circuit around the Pentagon and
Arlington National Cemetery. Cooper brought one
of his friends. They joined parents with
strollers and grandparents. "It's fun," said Cooper. "It's good for exercising,
plus you earn these cool little coins."
Walking with a group, though structured
and wholesome, isn't very high-drama. Rock climbing is what John Bliss
and his daughter, Maile, do together usually at
the SportRock indoor gym in Alexandria,
but sometimes on real rock at places such as Carderock in Maryland and
the New River Gorge in West Virginia.
Bliss, a 42-year-old single dad, has a
typical boomer fitness history. He used to be a mountain biker, and he
played competitive tennis. Then came law school,
children and a professional career. His
daughter started climbing when she was 7, but stopped. Now, several years
later, they both have discovered it's the perfect
way to stay in shape and stay connected.
As she belays her father down the steep
wooden wall pocked with handholds and toeholds, Maile, 13, admits she wants
to be active, not just for health but because
"I'd look good for boys, okay?" A friend
she brought along for the day, Britney Lamkin, giggles.
"This is great," Britney says. "I want
my mom to do this with me now."
"I've improved my health," says Bliss,
once he descends and unhooks his carabiner, the metal clip that holds the
rope to the harness. "My whole physique seems to
have changed from this climbing. It encourages
you to meet challenges. That translates into the tough professional setting.
And it's been a great way to stay
connected with her." Maile and her father
climb at least once a week.
Bliss, who works long, sometimes unpredictable
hours as a lawyer-lobbyist, manages to secure time with his daughter by
"embedding it in my schedule." His office
knows he's out by 5 p.m. on Tuesdays.
Once they got used to it, walking out the office door was easy.
There are days, of course, when a specific
work crisis threatens to overwhelm fatherly devotion. I remind him I've
worked in this crazy city, too, and know how it
goes sometimes ; impossibly hectic.
"Yes," he responds. "But I seem to have
this inner compass nowadays that asks, 'Am I allowing too many things to
justify breaking the schedule? Whatever business
I've got to do, is it really important
enough to let it trump the consistent connection with my child?' For me,
there's a high burden to overcome not doing this with her.
It's got to be pretty damn significant."
A Focused Approach
\
For some children and parents, the risks
and challenges are greater than those faced by lapsed boomer jocks. They
have rarely if ever exercised and are fighting
obesity, a serious medical condition not
easily reversed by occasional or even consistent activity. Increasingly,
obesity is facing parents and their children together, as
genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors
accumulate in a deadly downward trajectory.
But even they may find that family activity
is an important part of coping, and not only for the health benefits. By
struggling together to stay active, they put into
practice what researchers have demonstrated,
in a variety of studies, is the most effective approach for all involved:
The family that thins down together has children
that tend to stay thin for life.
Two years ago, at age 10, Sarah Grieco
of Chantilly weighed 130 pounds. Other kids teased her. At her favorite
store in the mall, none of the popular clothes fit.
Certain brands were just impossible. "The
kids were mean. We'd go into Limited Too and they would say, try this on,
try that on knowing none of it would fit,"
she says.
She avoided her favorite store, and those
nominal friends. She hid out at home in the baggy "guy clothes" from Penney's
that she hated, watching cartoons and eating.
At parties she wouldn't be able to stop
herself from devouring pizza, eventually throwing up. She hated the way
she looked. She felt bad about herself.
Today Sarah, taller and leaner, has a flatter
stomach. She swims. She plays basketball. She lifts weights. She has more
friends. She fits into clothes from Limited
Too. She owns bell-bottom jeans like other
12-year-olds. She bought her dream item of clothing a black V-neck from
Old Navy a medium! No more XXL.
She's happier and feels good about herself.
She is not just willing but eager to have her "before" and "after" photographs
published so people can see the change.
She talks excitedly.
"I really look a lot better. I'm meeting
more people. I can go to the mall without worrying what I look like. I
was fat. I had a double chin. Now I'm almost average! I
love my school picture this year. I have
all these cool clothes and I'm doing these cool things. My legs aren't
flubbery they have a lot of muscle. I'm so proud of
myself."
The difference, say Sarah and her mother,
Anna: Enrollment in a "Shapedown" program developed at the University of
California and offered by the Inova health
system in Fairfax, for children who are
"off the chart" heavier than 90 percent of children at the same age.
Parents and children attending the $400 program meet
once a week for two hours, sharing their
stories, learning from dietitians, counselors and aerobics instructors.
The goal, explains one of the dietitians, Susan Baum: "A
more active lifestyle."
A key part of the program is involving
parents and other family members, to ensure the family changes its habits
and supports the changes. Parents get information
about the importance of modeling behavior,
and about making menu changes for family meals. Parents and kids talk to
each other about their progress and
frustrations.
Children learn how to withstand teasing,
feel better about themselves, eat better and develop a lasting exercise
program. Counselors get to the bottom of the
problem, which is rarely, Baum says, anything
to do with food.
"We were really sedentary there was a
total lack of exercise," Anna Grieco said. "It made a difference in her
life, but also in ours. It makes a difference when
your kids start doing these things." Now
Anna Grieco is exercising more, too and enjoying some of the same benefits
as her daughter.
A Jock's View
One wouldn't expect a former National Football
League player to have much use for a class aimed at "family fitness." Yet
Scottie Graham does. Each Sunday, the
32-year-old former Minnesota Viking and
his 4-year-old daughter, Marika, drive in from Mitchellville for a "Wee
Workout" at an upmarket District fitness center,
Sports Club L.A.
For a half-hour, instructor Valeria Georgescu
leads the class of 3- to 5-year-olds and their parents in a series
of games involving jumping, skipping, balancing,
tossing balls and raising blueprint tubes.
(Georgescu also works for an architectural firm.) There's even a period
of meditation with music and a story. The kids and
the parents are right there on the floor,
doing the same things. As I watched, Georgescu led a game in which parents
and children had to hop toward each other with
a ball stuck between their knees ; everybody
looking rather silly, and one of the smallest boys, 4-year-old Sam Page,
nearly falling over with glee.
Such programs are gaining favor at many
fitness centers. Sports Club L.A. has a weekly "family day" filled with
events for parents and children, from jazz dancing to
basketball drills and swimming games.
They don't necessarily do the activities together while children do their
thing, parents can do theirs.
"It's amazing to me, but there are people
who give it all up when they have kids they think giving up exercise
is part of the selflessness of being a parent," says
Georgescu, herself the single mother of
a 16-year-old. "But that's really giving up on your children. They need
this as much as you do."
Even after the class ends, Graham, his
wife and two children stay at the gym, improvising other games and playing
together. "I'm making up for lost time," he
explains. "When I was playing [football],
I hardly had any time for my family. Whenever I was home, I had to sleep
or train without them. Now we're doing this
together. This is what I wanted for a
dad, somebody who would do this with me. I never had it, but my children
will."
Sports Club L.A. is an expensive and elite
downtown club, but community and fitness centers all around the region
including the network of YMCAs and county
and municipal recreation centers offer
similar programs aimed at family activities.
(When checking with a health club, though,
be sure to distinguish between "child care" which often means leaving
the kid in front of a TV or some toys while you
get exercise and programs where kids
and parents both get exercise, together and apart. Not all clubs are family-friendly.
Some, such as Sport & Health
Tenleytown Club, allow no one under age
16. "Many adults, including parents, want a sanctuary from stress and the
kids," says Don Konz, Sport & Health's
president. At the same time, a new sport
and health facility in Gaithersburg will include 8,000 square feet just
for kids, including a gym and special exercise
equipment.)
At my gym in Woodbridge, I discovered a
kid 12 or older can be added to parent's membership for $12 a month. My
daughter Serena joined and was given free
lessons on using equipment appropriate
for her age, and now we can lift weights and run on treadmills side-by-side.
Togetherness
Of course, there are fitness compromises
when you decide to be active as a family. If you intend to train as a competitive
athlete, the necessary adjustments to a
child's schedule and pace can definitely
slow you down.
Susan Kalish, 42-year-old executive director
of the American Running Association a former college soccer player and
marathon runner – explained how
she had adjusted her exercise routine
to include her son and daughter. "If you want to make it last forever for
them, it needs to be fun. They have to enjoy it," she
said.
Kalish's children set the pace and choose
the course through her Fairfax neighborhood sometimes with the 7-year-old
on her bike, sometimes with the family
dog, or with the 10-year-old playing tag,
sprinting or kicking a soccer ball as they go. "Nonstop is not in a child's
mentality, so you stop, smell the roses and catch a
few polliwogs, and then run on," Kalish
says. And yet Kalish, obviously devoted to the seriousness of running,
insisted that sometimes she ended up getting a better,
more well-rounded workout this way. The
way her son sprints and stops is perfect training for speed. (It's technically
called "interval" work.) But even if it's not the
best way for her to train and focus, she
gets to be with her children.
"So what if I don't always run as fast
as I used to?" she says. "I get to spend time with them. I'm a working
mother, and I had this nightmare of wanting to run by
myself and not having time with them.
But now I've found exercising with them is fun. And the things they'll
tell you when they're a little tired! You hear about
stresses, bullies, goals in life. My son
wants to be a neurosurgeon I found that out on mile two the other day."
And that's one of the themes that emerged
from all my talking with families that play together: Beyond the health
benefits, there are the benefits to spending time
together that you just can't get while
everybody watches TV or hangs around the house. A healthy family, in other
words, is a healthy family.
Since taking on this assignment, my daughters
and I have gone swimming together playing games in the water instead
of the usual pattern of my leaving them to
themselves as I compiled my laps in the
pool. The three of us have taken turns inventing games on an indoor racquetball
court, complete with a homemade racquet
Serena fashioned from a hanger and stockings.
Liana and I have played our own variations
of soccer on a basketball court which turns out to be more exhausting
than my usual workout. To my astonishment,
Serena has taken to riding a stationary
bike next to me at the gym. Granted, it has a screen with Internet access
but as she browses we're also talking about what
she notices. Sure enough, I've been learning
a few things about school and her friendships that I wouldn't know otherwise.
"That was fun," Liana said after she beat
me at another soccer game the other day.
Pleaded Serena: "Can we go again tonight?"
- Keith Epstein
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