British Kids a Bunch of Physical Weaklings, Study Shows
Filed under: In The News, Health
British kids can do fewer sit ups and are less able to hang from wall bars. Credit: Getty Images
It seems some of you British chaps have gotten a bit soft, eh, what? Bad form, that. Shakespeare might have called every man jack of you a finical, pigeon-livered quatch buttock.
Care to defend your honor? Sorry, lads, but that would require getting off your bums. And the London Daily Telegraph reports today's young blokes would rather play video games than get physical.
The newspaper suggests Britain might be raising a generation of pathetic gits who would rather sit about like they're on holiday at Brighton rather than get out and climb a bloody tree.
British researchers tell the Telegraph the situation has gotten worse over the past 10 years. British kids can do fewer sit ups and are less able to hang from wall bars. And they're generally just not as muscular. It's like they all went out and joined the chess club.
The study, published in the children's health journal Acta Paediatrica, has Brits going on about the need for kids to get outdoors.
"This is probably due to changes in activity patterns among English 10-year-olds, such as taking part in fewer activities like rope-climbing in PE and tree-climbing for fun," lead researcher Gavin Sandercock of Essex University tells the Telegraph. "Typically, these activities boosted children's strength, making them able to lift and hold their own body weight."
Researchers compared a g! roup of 315 Essex kids today to a similar group of 10-year-olds in 1998. They found the current crop of kids weak.
Specifically, 27.1 percent fewer kids could do sit ups. Arm strength fell by 26 percent and grip strength by 7 percent. Twice as many kids today could not hold their own weight when hanging from wall bars.
"Climbing trees and ropes used to be standard practice for children, but school authorities and 'health and safety' have contrived to knock the sap out of our children," Tam Fry of the Child Growth Foundation tells the Telegraph. "Falling off a branch used to be a good lesson in picking yourself up and learning to climb better. Now fear of litigation stops the child climbing in the first place."
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