I skimmed through the obsesity thread and was thinking about something I heard the famous running coach Dr. Jack Daniels talk about last weekend. I was at an International Coaches Conference and Jack spoke to us about training (of course) but he started with his background: He was in High School in NY and there were these fitness tests: 150 yard swim, 1.5 mile run, 18 dead hang pull ups, and climb a 30 foot rope in like 6 seconds without using your legs. Your times were recorded and based on your overall score you were awarded a certain color of gym shorts. If you scored in the highest percentile you got to wear the GOLD shorts (kind of like the gold medal). Anyway, by his Sr. year only 6 males in his high school earned the GOLD shorts. Out of about 2500 kids. 4 years later, out of those 6 kids, 4 were medallists in the Olympic Games. Morale of the story? Apparently we set our standards too low these days. We don’t promote enough physical fitness for kids and we let them watch too much TV and play video games. It’s very disheartening to see our kids (and adults) getting bigger and bigger and lazier and lazier…
Agreed. Any we’re making it easier (food, lifestyle, etc.) for people to get fatter, not to mention manufacturing upteen excuses.
Matt Sullivan