A Pledge for Our Youth Fitness

I have worked with youth in an outreach capacity for ten years on a daily basis, and have witnessed a major change in the mindset of our youth on health and fitness. Today's youth are continually developing bad habits, beginning at a very young age. These bad habits are contributing to unhealthy lifestyles that can easily continue into adulthood if we, as society continue to overlook the seriousness of it. Overweight issues are increasing everyday among children of all ages, races, ethnicities and economic backgrounds. It's time for society to make a pledge for our youth's fitness.

Addressing this issue would need to begin in the home, with the parents. The majority of today's families consist of two working parents or one parent working two jobs. Parents are constantly be pressured into working long hours to keep up with the demanding needs of society and to provide a stable family life for their children. In the meantime, proper healthy meals are not being made on a consistent basis, supervision of our youth is suffering, and the parental motivation for our youth to be active students has demised.

Parents need to think of ways to minimized how often their children eat fast food. Making dishes to last the entire week; or having easy pre-made dishes is examples of doing this. Also our schools are getting caught up in this fad of unhealthy foods, like pizza and junk food. Demanding that healthy food be provided for our youth in the schools is one way that society can step up to the plate. Addressing this issue will need to be a combined effort between parents and society.

Supervision of our youth outside school hours is a whole topic within itself, but I am going to focus on some of the activities that our youth are engaged in while at home and how it's affecting their health. Technology has so many advantages on so many different levels, but many disadvantages come along with it as well. Our youth are not playing outside with neighborhood kids anymore because they are too busy soaking up all these new technology gadgets and devises that come out everyday. Television used to be the only enemy, but know we have computers, video games, cell phones, etc. to give youth a reason to stay in the house. This piece of the problem will never go away as long as technology keeps on advancing the way it is, so society needs to give our youth a reason to get out the house and to become active in their community and schools. It's always been a known fact that youth who are not active in school activities and sports are more prone to have unhealthy life habits. It's time to start making baby steps to a long haul problem.

I encourage that society; along with parents make the following pledge for our youth fitness:

1. Educate our youth about health and fitness and its importance.
2. Motivate our youth to engage in student activities and sports.
3. Speak out for healthy meals in our schools.
4. Not only talk about good health & fitness, but be a role model for it as well.

It's not a solution that will happen overnight, but like I said before, it's baby steps.