WHY BEG A CHILD TO PLAY?
Jim Hite
Have you noticed the billboard on US 25? Which one?

The billboard that is ironic, unreal, and actually sad.

This billboard is an ad telling children to go outside and play for 30 minutes a day!

Can you imagine! Advertising being used to beg kids to go outside and play!

How did we get to this?

Are these inactive youngsters glued to television or computer screens by choice? Is it the example set by their elders, themselves the product of the "hours a day in front of the TV screen" generation? Or is it the over-organizing of play, in that parents expect and encourage teams to be formed, coaches assigned from the earliest age of their children? For several decades now, uniforms, helmets, and shoulder pads; measured fields, team organization, and competition have replaced gathering at a playground, vacant lot, or field to choose sides and play whatever.

And it's not only on the local level. There are also summer and off-season travel teams, even for youngsters, that organize and coach the better athletes.

What about the kids who aren't on the team? And what do those on various teams do when they are not at organized practices or games? What about those who are winnowed out of participation because they can't measure up?

In ancient days, punishment for the infraction of parental rules was being told you could not go outside and play. Now, it seems to be the opposite. It's difficult to drag a youngster from the screen!

Maybe there are not enough vacant lots in town or fields in the country. Maybe it is not considered safe to be outside playing until darkness ends the game. Maybe it's become a habit to drive or be driven to take part in organized activity.

Play for play's sake is long forgotten, an activity that is quaint but irrelevant.

Yet, the overall health of millions of our citizens, young and old, deteriorates mainly because of inactivity.

And now we advertise to beg children to be active for just 30 minutes a day!

Charlie Brown said it best: "Good grief!"