Child's Play

With the Centers for Disease Control estimating that between six and 19 percent of children are overweight, and an additional 15 percent at risk for becoming obese, I think we need to ask ourselves: What can the fitness industry really do to make a difference?

I guess the first thing we have to understand is, “What is the problem?” Why are so many kids fat? Of course, discussion about this has been going on for years; the biggest culprits appear to be junk food, entertainment options that cause kids to sit for hours and hours, and school funds cuts, which have resulted in the elimination of physical education programs.

It’s been a while, but I do remember being a kid. My friends and I had junk food and ate it, albeit our junk was more in the form of sugar rather than in fat; in fact, our almost daily outing after school was to the local drugstore to purchase our favorite candy, and then proceed to eat it -- all. And, at meals, our parents made us eat everything on our plates. As for entertainment, we didn’t have all of the options that kids have now, but we did have music and television, and even “back then,” those were distractions from being outdoors with our friends -- or, in other words, being active. And those P.E. programs? They were no incentive to exercise at all. Almost every kid I knew hated P.E.; it was punishment. Yet, still, the percentage of children back then who were obese comes nowhere close to what that percentage is today.

So, why are kids so fat today? Well, many say that kids just don’t partake in as much of the good, old-fashioned fun that children used to crave. The kind that happens after school and on weekends when kids and their friends get together and roughhouse, grab the bikes and head to another friend’s to get a pick-up game together, or head down to the river, lake or beach to check out the scene. It’s not that these options don’t exist anymore. I still see kids in my neighborhood outside riding their skateboards, chasing each other around, playing basketball, etc. It’s just that, I believe, there seems to be a different perception of what is “fun.” The newer entertainment options have made good, old-fashioned fun seem sort of “hum-drum.”

The question is whether the new facilities geared specifically toward kids’ fitness that are springing up across the country are what this population needs to stave off the obesity crisis. The facilities I am talking about include those such as Volt Fitness and Intelligent Sports’ Youth Fitness Centers.

Volt Fitness is a new video arcade/gym concept in Glen Rock, N.J., which was created by a pediatrician and former fitness director, and combines circuit training machines with video games. They’re marketing the concept to pre-teens and teens who pay $10 to $15 an hour to “work up a sweat while playing video games that require them to ride an exercise bike, work out on a rowing machine or engage in a simulated boxing match.” The idea, apparently, is “to get the kids moving so that they will have a change in mind-set -- a paradigm shift in how they view exercise.”

Intelligent Sports’ Youth Fitness Centers in Upland, Calif., provides youth and family fitness equipment and programs “to allow kids to grow athletically and intellectually, and to fight childhood obesity.” The facilities, which are membership-based, are designed for kids and include exercise equipment that is interactive with several popular video game titles from PlayStation and Xbox.

Interesting concept for a whole new type of fitness facility market, but is it just a new business model that will attract only active youth? Or, could it succeed in having an effect on the child obesity epidemic?