A nation of little butterballs?

Three 8-year-old boys are in the house, and it's absolutely silent, except for the sound of a repetitive melody. This is the lure of electronic games. It's a warm spring day in southern California, and the only exercise that interests my son and his friends is moving their thumbs over a control pad.

Are American children becoming more inactive and less fit as adults hit the jogging paths and gyms? Surveys have shown children getting fatter since the 1960s. "We're slowly producing a nation of little butterballs," says Guy Reiff, Ph.D., a physical education professor at the University of Michigan, who assessed the fitness levels of 19,000 students for the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports in 1984. Forty percent of boys aged 6 to 12 could not do more than one pull-up, and one in four could not do any. Fifty-five percent of girls aged 9 to 17 could not do more than one pull-up.

Adults are really not faring any better. Despite what athletic shoe ads would have us believe, adults are not very active. More than 40 percent of adults are completely sedentary, and only 11 percent exercise with the intensity, duration, and frequency recommended for heart and lung fitness. Inactivity in adults is associated with a number of chronic diseases, including diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and colon cancer.

Many experts believe the number one goal of physical education in childhood should be to foster increased activity in adulthood. "The relationship between activity and health in childhood is not terribly well understood, but it does not appear to be overwhelmingly strong. The issue is to help youngsters develop activities that they can carry into adulthood," notes Russell Pate, Ph.D., president-- elect of the American College of Sports Medicine and professor at the University of South Carolina.

Athletic or health-related fitness. American children have traditionally performed poorly on fitness tests, starting with the 1953 results of the Kraus-Weber tests--six simple movements testing muscular fitness of key muscle groups. Fifty-nine percent of American children failed the tests, while only 8.7 percent of European children failed. Is concern over our children's current level of fitness justified? Experts are not sure.

According to Steven Blair, P.E.D. director of epidemiology at the Institute for Aerobics Research, "Children are easily the fittest segment of society, as anyone who has ever tried to keep up with a young child can confirm. That is not to say there are no children with problems."

Measures of fitness have changed since the 1950s and 1960s when motor skills such as speed, power, agility, and muscular strength were tested. Almost any member of the baby boomer generation remembers the 50-yard dash and long jump tests.

Health-related fitness tests gained common usage in the late 1970s. Rather than testing athletic prowess, health-related tests measure aspects of health that impact chronic diseases. Aerobic fitness is measured by a mile walk/run, percentage of body fat is measured with skin calipers, and abdominal muscle strength and hamstring flexibility are tested to reflect the level of lower-back health.

Heart disease still number one. The human body is built to be active. The benefits of exercise are many: maintenance of a healthy weight, stronger bones, a healthy back, increased self-esteem, and intellectual performance. But perhaps the greatest benefit is the reduction in such chronic diseases as heart disease. Being sedentary is a major risk factor for heart disease in adults. And while the uproar over AIDS has received much attention, heart disease still is the number one cause of death in the United States. One out of every two people in the United States will die from some form of heart or blood vessel disease.

Heart disease begins in infancy and childhood, and takes decades to develop. Studies have found that 70 percent of school-aged children already have such risk factors for heart disease as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and obesity.

A lifetime commitment. Exercise must be continued to remain effective in the prevention of chronic diseases. Once exercise ceases, so do the benefits. This is why many experts, such as Dr. Pate, consider the fostering of an active lifestyle that will continue in adulthood to be the most important and compelling goal of children's physical education. This lifetime goal is different from the current focus of school PE.

How can we get our children to exercise and keep exercising? Setting an example helps. Children whose parents exercise, especially their mothers, are more active and more physically fit. Community programs such as soccer, baseball, and swimming offer competitive opportunities for exercise.

School physical education, however, is the only way to reach virtually all children. Improving physical education in schools could prevent the next generation from being sedentary. The problem is this: no one really knows how to introduce physical activity in such a way that it will last a lifetime.

Children are not little adults. Most forms of adult exercise are repetitious-jogging, swimming, stationary bicycling, and rowing, for example. While some programs are trying to teach fitness knowledge and adult exercise methods to children, most experts discourage such methods.

According to Dr. Pate, "It is a mistake to impose the adult exercise mode on youngsters, particularly younger kids. It is not enjoyable and is not a natural form of physical activity for them." Forced, unpleasant exercise does little to foster enthusiasm for an active lifestyle.

Children do not respond physiologically to aerobic training, as do adults. Aerobic gains in children seem to be related to maturity and growth more. than to the training regimen. "Children are not merely scaled-down adults, and we should be cautious in applying adult aerobic training standards to children," states Kathleen Haywood, Ph.D., a physical education professor at the University of Missouri.

Although it is important to get children moving now, it is essential to make physical activity a positive experience if the goal is long-term fitness. Children need age-appropriate activities. For centuries games have been used for enjoyment, enthusiasm, and activity.

Movement or skills? Some proponents of health-related fitness want to deemphasize competitive sports skills and encourage movement. Because school PE time is limited, they reason that all available time should be devoted to movement. One study found that out of the average 30-minute PE class, each child was physically active for only two minutes. The majority of time was spent on administrative matters and watching others.

Other physical educators believe that teaching skills to children will enable future participation in a wide variety of activities. Studies have found that taking part in a variety of activities increases both levels of fitness and participation.

Skills must be taught in childhood to allow variety and choice in adult activities. Striking skills, for example, are necessary to master before playing tennis or racquetball.

Adult choices. Not until puberty do young people respond physiologically to exercise, as adults. This is the time to introduce repetitive training methods and fitness principles.

Adolescents are beginning to develop their adult lifestyle patterns of exercise, health, and time management. The choices they learn to make will affect their future well-being.

Adults make decisions that affect not only their health, but the health and future lifestyle of their children. Taking time to be active together, making that activity enjoyable, could result in a lifetime of health.

I set aside my chores and roust my son and his friends from his room. Not an easy task, breaking the electronic connection. We walk to the park with our two dogs, a chocolate Labrador and a Dalmatian. The boys are no longer quiet. The air is filled with their laughter and shouts as they try to outrun the dogs, who seem to be enjoying themselves too.