June 16, 2004

By: Bronwyn Millard
Website: http://www.1st-in-fitness.com

Cycling is one of the best ways for kids to take regular exercise

Thanks to an increasing diet of sugary soft-drinks and fast-food, UK kids are already the fattest in Europe. Children are spending more time lazing in front of the TV and computers, and less time playing with friends, running around or riding a bike.

Unless our kids eat healthier and take more exercise they will soon be as fat as children in the United States, where one in five is obese: so fat that their weight will affect their health.

Politicians say we’re sitting on a ‘health time-bomb’ that could kill thousands of people, and cost tax-payers millions in hospital and health services. Children who are overweight or obese face greater risks of developing serious illness later in life, such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer, Public Health Minister Melanie Johnston warned.

Experts say fatter children are more likely to be bullied at school, become depressed and even develop eating disorders later in life. Already one in every seven UK teenagers and one in every 12 six year-olds are obese, according to the Department of Health. That’s nearly double the number of dangerously fat children there were in 1982.

Health experts say cycling is one of the best ways for kids to take regular exercise. Dr John Buckley, exercise physiologist at the Keel University said if kids just cycled to and from school every day, they would burn up 12lbs of fat every year. If a child cycles one mile to school and a mile home, they will expend around 200 calories, the equivalent of the fat in a good size bag of crisps, he said. If they did this five days per week, 36 weeks of the year, that’s 180 bags of crisps.

Most children live less than two miles from school - a 15 minute cycle ride – and, according to cycle campaign groups, most kids have bicycles and want to ride more. Cycling is not just great exercise for children, its helps them become more ‘street wise’ about road safety and their neighbourhoods, and to make new friends. It’s also great fun.

But parents and teachers have sometimes banned children from biking to school because they fear traffic accidents and ‘stranger danger’. Twice as many children are now driven to school by car, compared with 20 years ago. That means less exercise for children, and more cars around schools.

Simon Brammer, director of the London Cycling Campaign said: Cycling is actually perceived to be more dangerous than it is. 125 children and adults were killed while cycling last year, compared to 2,500 people in motor vehicles and 40,000 from diseases related to obesity.

In September last year, the Department for Education promised £5,000 for every primary school, and £10,000 for every secondary school, to make cycling and walking better options for pupils. It wants schools to explore new ways to get children cycling the school run, including facilities to lock up bikes at school, providing cycling safety and ‘stranger danger’ classes for pupils and introducing bike maintenance workshops.

It also wants schools to introduce innovative schemes like ‘cycle trains’, where adults ride popular routes to and from school, picking up pupils, with their bikes, on the way. At Kesgrave Secondary School in Ipswich, introducing safe crossings and lanes for cyclists and bike safety training has led to more than two out of every three pupils cycling to school.

Government action to build dedicated bike lanes and introduce traffic calming measures has been slow. The National Cycling Strategy’s 1996 aim to double cycle use by 2002 was not met. But cycling received a boost recently, following the success of the Congestion Charge in London. In its first year, the charge reduced car use in the capital, and increased the number of cyclists by a third.

Now more than £15m has now been provided for local authorities to appoint school travel advisors to work with schools, road engineers and others to design better cycle and walking routes for pupils.

Bike Week, from 12 to 20 June, has hundreds of local cycling events aimed to help adults and children try out cycling and learn safety and maintenance skills. One of the best ways to improve road safety for children riding to school is simply to make the bike more familiar to motorists, said Nick Harvey, co-ordinator of Bike Week and the Bike2Work campaign. That means many more parents should set a good example and cycle for short journeys instead of using a car.

Author Notes:

Bronwyn Millard contributes and publishes news editorial to http://www.1st-in-fitness.com.  A source of information and helpful tips on various types of fitness equipment.