There's a article by a pediatric occupational therapist making the rounds about the way that the normal, sedentary school day contributes to a host of problems including childhood obesity, sensory integration difficulties, lack of core body strength, balance trouble, and learning difficulties. Parents, not surprisingly, have jumped to the task of finding solutions to the problem the author lays out.
In a follow-up piece, the author addresses those solutions. Are exercise ball seats or brief exercise breaks throughout the day the answer? In a word: no. These quick fixes are cosmetic solutions for a bone-deep problem. Exercising a minute or two out of every hour is not enough. Children need to run, roll, spin, swing, and play for hours every day in order to develop normally. Our schools, unfortunately, don't support that. Actually, the number and length of recess breaks have done nothing but decrease in the last few years, and the few recesses allowed to our kids are routinely cancelled due to inclement weather and replaced with alternate sitting still activities.
Ask at your local elementary school how many minutes of recess children receive a day. Ask what happens instead when it rains or when the temperature is below zero. The answers will not reassure you. As the article so memorably puts it: when the bum is numb, the brain is dumb.
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