Example of Exploitation of Children in Sports

It's A Kid's World on the Halfpipe appeared in the New York Times on Sunday July 15. The article discusses big money sponsorship of child skateboarders. The initial example is of the 9-year-old Puehse twins of Ben Lomond, CA. Their father has been marketing the boys since they were age 6 to potential sponsors. The youngest sponsored skateboarders usually receive only free equipment, apparel and monetary payment, but the rewards increase significantly, the article says, if participants continue to excel.

Skateboarding ought to be a way for kids to engage in outdoor active free play and get away from the constrictions of adult sponsored youth sports leagues. it is one way to keep kids from gettin obese. But, we should not professionalize it, especially for children at such young ages.

We ought to let kids be kids and not place them in the world of big money sports where they can be exploited and manipulated by adults at such young ages.

I am afraid that this is just another sign of the professionalization of children's sports and another indication of the need for children's sports reform that groups like Moms Team are working for.

Trends in Popular Forms of Exercise 2

Reference my last post:

I was surprised by the decline in participation in cycling. The NSGA data show sharp declines in the numbers of bicycling participants and frequent participants.

Perhaps here in the Washington, DC, area with its high per capita income and emerging network of trails I get a distorted picture of what is really happening in cycling. When I go out on the local recreational trails, especially on weekends, i see plenty of people bicycling.

Also group bicycle rides in which I have participated have no shortage of participants. Thousands participate in the Seagull Century on Maryland's Eastern Shore every fall.

Perhaps the decline is a sign of aging of the population.

Do you out there in cyberspace cycle more or less now than you used to? What are your observations about cycling near where you live?

Trends in Popular Forms of Exercise 1

Today, I reviewed data on participation in 11 popular sports and forms of fitness activities. These data are available in great detail on SBRnet, which I recommended in previous posts to all who need comprehensive data on sports. The data are gathered annually by the National Sporting Goods Association. They provide valuable clues to trends in demand for sporting goods, but they are only indicators of the extent to which Americans are getting enough exercise for good health by participating in these sports and fitness activities.

One problem is that they define a participant as one 7 years of age or older who takes part in a sport more than once a year or at least 6 times a year in certain sports. Thus one could be counted as a participant with a very low level of participation. The data also include the numbers who are frequent participants which, for most sports and fitness activities, is defined as participating at least 110 days a year. To meet the CDC criteria for suffiicient exercise for good health, one has to exercise 30 minutes 5 days a week, or about 150 days a year, or vigorously for 20 minutes 3 days a week or 250 days a year. Thus even the NSGA estimates of frequent participants could include many who do not get enough exercise for good health.

The NSGA data also do not show how many people participate in two or more sports or fitness activities occasionally or frequently. There probably are many such people. I think NSGA should refine its surveys to capture data on people who participate in two or more sports. I would think sporting goods marketers would like to know that and that, if they did, they could design unique package deals of sporting goods. Would skis or snowboards and golf clubs combined in one deal be an appealing package? How about package deals of skiing and golfing vacations?

I was not surprised that the latest data show major increases in less-than-frequrent and frequent participation in exercise walking. Walking for exercise is easy to do and inexpensive. You can do it right from your home, and physicians often suggest it for people who are not active. It also is consistently the number 1 fitness activity for seniors.

I'll say more about the SBRnet-NSGA data in later posts.

More on HHS Physical Activity Guidelines Development

Physical Activity Guidelines is the link for information on HHS' advisory committee effort to develop comprehensive physical activity guidelines. I will check the website from time to time for more information, and I advise interested readers to do the same. HHS is emailing information on the guidelines development effort only to US federal government email addresses.

Maine's Sports Done Right

This afternoon, in the course of my continuing research for the update of Physical Activity Trends: Business and Policy Implications, I read Sports Done Right: A Call to Action on Behalf of Maine's Student Athletes. I found it to be a very inspiring document and concluded that, to the extent school and outside-school youth sports programs follow its 7 core principles and core practices for each principle and do not allow the practices it says are out of bounds, youth sports would actually live up to its ideals.

I wonder to what extent this document has actually influenced practice in Maine and across the USA.

I would welcome comments on that.