Pediatricians to add exercise as a routine "vital sign"
Pediatricians have a laundry list of age-specific issues they talk to parents about. These issues include advice about immunizations, when to add certain foods to the diet, counseling on behavioral issues and much more. They also have checklists of things they monitor at each scheduled visit: the height and weight of the child is carefully plotted on growth charts, age-specific behavioral milestones (when the child started rolling over, talking, walking, and so forth) are noted in the medical record. Now, pediatricians are being encouraged by their own specialty society, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), to add routine monitoring of physical activity of their patients and their families. I say bravo!
Although the article I read about this new policy, in today's San Francisco Chronicle, began by saying the AAP wants to turn children's doctors into "activity police" -- a decidely negative framing of the issue -- who better to counsel and cajole parents and kids about an activity that is so vital to their lifelong health? The Chronicle article quoted Angie Dixon, a writer in Little Rock, Arkansas, as saying the recommendations ""certainly could become instrusive" if doctors are not sensitive to families' constraints". Well, I say to Angie Dixon, excuse me, it is exactly these constraints that have moved physical activity way down the list of priorities for parents and kids -- and by the way, off the priority list for employers (who will pay for the health consequences of poor physical fitness) and society as a whole (when was the last time you saw a poll listing American's concern about poor physical fitness, obesity, or even it's adverse health consequences (high blood pressure, abnormal lipids, glucose intolerance, cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes)
It is, in part, because we are too darn busy or too tired to turn off the computer, video games, and TVs to walk together, hike together, or play basketball together with our kids on the weekends, or otherwise engage our bodies and our kid's bodies in burning calories that we are seeing increasingly sedentary (and fat) youngsters. No time or inclination to prepare healthy meals and sit down at a table together is another ingrained American cultural issue that needs to be addressed. Two to three meals per day of fast food combined with little to no exercise is an excellent way to spell "FAT KIDS!"
It is time to get serious about the epidemic of childhood obesity. There is not going to be a quick fix. It is going to take parents, kids, schools, communities, state and local government and the feds all doing their part to reverse this deadly epidemic. If we fail to do this, our children will be the first generation of Americans in decades to see their life expectancy decline. I applaud the AAP for making exercise a "vital sign" for kids.