We now have a month dedicated to the childhood obesity epidemic. And the observance comes none-too-soon, considering it appears our kids may be even bigger than we realized.
As Take A Child Outside Week draws to a close and as we segue into National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month comes the disturbing news that the nation’s childhood obesity epidemic may be even worse than the numbers suggest. First, to recap those numbers: Nearly 20 percent (19.6) of the nation’s kids ages 6-11 were considered obese in 2008 (up from 6.5 percent in 1980), while 18.1 percent of 12- to 19-year-olds were obese in 2008, up from just 5 percent in 1980; In North Carolina, more than a third of our kids are either obese or overweight.read more
It’s Big Sweep Day across the state, the day each year when paddlers hit their favorite waterways and rid them of the styrofoam, the basketballs, the milk jugs and assorted other detritus that accumulates along the banks. You can find a rundown of events statewide at the North Carolina Office of Environmental Education & Public Affairs. Events such as Big Sweep Columbus County, where a ranger-led canoe caravan will scour the banks of this Carolina Bay beginning at 3 p.m. Sunday. Only two requirements: 1) You must register in advance (by calling 910-646-4748), b) You must know how to swim.read more
From the research world comes more compelling evidence to be active …
Bike to work: It’s good for your heart
Remember when people didn’t have gym memberships, didn’t run 5Ks, didn’t sweat to the oldies — and not because they hadn’t been recorded yet? This would have been back when we walked to the factory where they had physically demanding jobs. When we were more concerned about how many $ our clothes cost, not how many Xs came before the L.read more
One thing I love about going back to Colorado is I never know when I’ll bump up against celebrity. Celebrity in my case meaning a rock star of the outdoor world.
Two weeks ago I was in Loveland, home office of my wife’s employer, Interweave. Interweave produces books, magazines and Web sites covering the crafting world. Not the kind of workplace where you’d expect to find leaders of the mountain biking world or pioneering female rock climbers. Not unless that workplace is in Colorado.read more
It was a telling commentary on the times four years ago when Liz Baird came up with the idea for Take A Child Outside Week. The simple notion that you needed to dedicate a week to encouraging kids to go outside and play would have been preposterous just a decade earlier. Yet with the proliferation of video games and parents increasingly fearful of threats real and perceived, kids were staying inside — and being kept inside — in record numbers. The dilemma was chronicled by author and advocate Richard Louv in his 2005 bestseller, “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder,” an account of how our kids had gone from being weaned in the wild to garrisoned in the great room in less than a generation.read more