There was a piece in the papers today (one of the several colourful, ad-filled, bollywood news flashing supplements). It mentioned how playing will really not help children with their obesity.
I have a simple question.Will playing help children NOT reach a state of obesity?
In India there is this unfortunate love of plump babies and chubby toddlers. You see a 2 yr old child with cheeks like chipmunks and all the women go cootchy-coo and maternal and oddly scary (what with the cheek pulling – the child’s, not their own- and funny faces that are meant to be amusing!).
Grandparents constantly feel their grandchild is being malnourished and ill-treated and thus give in to any demands made by their precocious (!!) darling (which, at a young age mainly involves eating anything remotely junk and unhealthy and buying anything that will allow them hours in front of the computer/tv).
Which brings me to why I started writing this. Children today do not play anymore. At least they don’t play in the traditional meaning of the word. Their play is more sitting at home in front of the computer with joysticks in your hand type of play. Their play involves weekly outings to the closest mall with a gaming arena.
Obviously play is not going to help with their obesity, except perhaps to be a cause of it!
What will help children avoid obesity (and also control it) is a more traditional form of playing. The kind of playing we participated in when we were children (as much as I don’t like to think about it, I am growing old!!!).
The games we played gave us as good a full body workout as anything – be it Sankhli where we struggled to either get away from a human chain encircling us or remain part of the chain and run behind others, or Lagori that had us running helter skelter after 7 stones of varying sizes and at the same time dodging missiles being thrown by the opposing team. Then there were the all time favourites, Hide and Seek, Langdi (a strenuous exercise!), Hop Scotch (oh the agony of not being able to make ‘houses’!), Lock and Key (a strain indeed on not being able to move), Kho-Kho (oh my what fun), and Dodge ball (oh my what a pain).
Parents fail to see the value of such games. They fail to realise that one hour of playing kho-kho or langdi will help their child (in more ways than one, but that I will leave for another time) much more than one hour on the treadmill.
Today children probably do not even know of these games. What they will know is the address of the closest gym.
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