How much exercise does your child get per week?

fteale

I saw a depressing statistic today on the BBC website that the average British child gets just 2.6 hours per week outdoor exercise. This is mostly blamed on people being scared to let their children play outside unsupervised (though I imagine the weather plays a part!). My children get at least 2 hours outside a day, and in the summer holidays they are almost never indoors, so was a bit horrified by this!

andrewlazenby

I saw a depressing statistic today on the BBC website that the average British child gets just 2.6 hours per week outdoor exercise. This is mostly blamed on people being scared to let their children play outside unsupervised (though I imagine the weather plays a part!). My children get at least 2 hours outside a day, and in the summer holidays they are almost never indoors, so was a bit horrified by this!

To much to count. He stays outside running around and riding his bike / chasing the dog / causing general mayhem. That said, he eats like crap no matter how much his mom and I try to get anything green in him...

TheArmadillo

mine oldest gets to walk everywhere on top of his inability to sit still (today that was 2.5 hours plus walking around the farm we went to and playing in the park). At least an hour a day walking is normal for him on a weekday and longer on the weekend. Plus all the normal running around that I assumed kids did.
the smaller one is still in a pushchair but I want her out of it by next year (she's just turned 2) so she walked part of the route today as and when she wanted to and then played in the park. She would normally have done more but she was very tired today.

Plus they ran around at home non stop as per usual.

We walk everywhere because we don't have a car and don't like public transport (its expensive, crap, never goes where we want it to, doesn't turn up etc etc). So our default is to walk. But I do get told how 'you can't expect your kids to walk that far' (yeah we'll he did it the other day and then pestered me to take him out for a bike ride after and then ran round all evening - clearly exhausted there :huh: ). I am also surprised at the short distances (under 15 mins each way - even my 2yo can do 20-30mins at a time minimum) that people will drive - even driving to the corner shop :noway: Or how they will spend ages trying to get as far to the front of the carpark that they can, when if they parked at the back they could have been parked and walked across in a shorter amount of time. Half the time when you factor in traffic jams, finding a parking space etc its quicker to walk.

here ends my favourite rant :grumble:

fteale

My younger son point blank refused to go into a pushchair after 18 months (he was walking at 11 months), so he's always had a lot of exercise. He used to push his older brother around in his pushchair.

TheArmadillo

lol
Mine goes through times when she doesn't want to take it - which is fine if you going to be walking for under an hour. But mostly we're doing more than that and I can't carry her with everything else. I don't mind her getting in and out though.

charitas32

I think mine got 2.6hrs every day this week, but we are very lucky to live in a town with moors, woods, and a riverside park within 20minutes walk.

Having said that my neighbour shoots out of his drive at 3.20 to pick the kids up from school, a journey of less than 0.25 miles, which must cost him loads over the year. However we don't own a car and one of my neighbours commented on how I didn't stay in with them, that would be because I value my sanity and furniture, and they don't shrink in the rain.

We don't use public transport very often, but we love the friendly Dales bus, you can stop it anywhere on it's long route and using it meant we could easily take the kids camping

atxdee

my child gets less than an hour play time outside due to the fact that is so freaken hot in TX, but we do have our pool days where they swim and spend few hours at the pool on the weekends.. but as far as indoors go, they do have much active time I'd say total 2 hours a day. my girls have dance class, zumba family class, art class, and we play basketball together as a family after my workout at the gym at least 5 days a week. I love setting a good example for them and like keepi g them as active as possible without over doing it.