ON SUNDAY, I WAS AT A POOL PARTY for the 10-year-old daughter of my law partner. The party was held in Tarzana in one of those gated developments that specialize in manicured lawns, and the “Leave it to Beaver” world promised to everyone in the ’50s. The party was a blast. There were about 20 kids under 11, all of them running around, playing in the pool enjoying a beautiful end-of-summer weekend.
After the party, I came back to my little home to walk my dog and stroll through the park to work off some of the calories from the party. Virginia Avenue Park has a water feature — it’s similar to those in-ground fountains that you see at the Music Center, where water shoots up in different patterns. On Sunday, there were maybe a dozen or so kids playing in water.
The interesting thing was the contrast I noticed between the two populations of children. Both groups of kids were in the ‘pre-teen’ category. Both groups were happy and enjoying themselves playing in the water and cavorting as groups of children will.
But the differences were striking to me. In the Valley, the children were all from fairly well-to-do parents, and the food was typical birthday party fare: Hot dogs, brownies, potato chips, carrot sticks and three types of salads. What I noticed was how almost all of the kids were well nourished, but not fat. There was one overweight girl, but other than that, the kids were all within that range of “normal” weight for their height and age.
At the park, the children were with their families (I have no idea what their economic status is), but almost all of the kids were overweight or obese. It was truly shocking to me, as it was such a contrast, so close in proximity to each other.
Now I don’t think it is a genetic difference, but it could be, I suppose. I don’t think it is an intelligence difference, as there is more than enough education out there for people to learn how to eat properly. And I don’t think it is a caring issue, as both groups of people were happy and enjoying themselves and the parents seemed to evidence love for their children.
I think it is an economic issue. There was one girl at the birthday party who was doing backflips and roundoffs and cartwheels — she was very talented and quite graceful. I asked her father, how long had she been taking gymnastics lessons? He said two years, plus the summer intensives of five hours a day, five days a week. I didn’t really think very much of it, until I got to the park. The kids in the park were running around and playing, but they weren’t doing any directed play, or playing in an athletic manner.
I think that’s because they haven’t been shown how.
It occurred to me that the difference between these two groups of children and the wide disparity of their physical health and agility is really just a matter of access to physical education.
It used to be that P.E. was derided as that class to warehouse kids and less than stellar teachers. But the reality is that if we don’t teach kids how to play constructively, and how to develop their bodies, and how to direct their energies into something more useful than a Playstation, we are doing them a disservice.
Now, clearly, the people at the birthday party had access to private classes and trainers for their kids (and I’m not saying that the parents who don’t have that access are bad parents). What I am saying is that, as a society, we have to recognize the need, as part of a full and comprehensive education, to teach our children about physical exercise.
The governor talks about putting our children first, the president talks about No Child Left Behind, our Assemblywoman ran on the basis of her education credentials, yet, at the end of the day, we have to look at where the money goes to see their true priorities. We have billions of dollars for new jailbeds, while our schools go under-funded.
It’s my perspective that we would be better off putting some of that money into after-school programs, bringing back P.E. to the schools that lost it, and upgrading our athletic programs. Otherwise, we’re just going to be putting those overweight and obese children into the jails when they act out due to low self-esteem and bad body image. We’ll also have to provide a much higher level of medical care for these kids, all of whom are at risk of developing hypertension and diabetes in epidemic proportions.
All of which is just bad economics, and bad for society.
DAVID PISARRA is a family law lawyer in the Santa Monica firm of Pisarra & Grist. He or (310) 664- 9969.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 18, 2007. Read the original PDF.