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Home » Exercise Programs » An exercise shortage in the Northwest – Kitsap Sun

Julie McCleery, Your turn Published 12:53 p.m. PT Dec. 18, 2019 | Updated 1:12 p.m. PT Dec. 18, 2019

People who live in and around Seattle areamong the nations most active. The region is an outdoor recreation haven for both locals and visitors who enjoyhiking, biking and kayaking.

I conductresearch about coaching and youth sports. To see if the roughly 450,000 kids who live inthe county which encompasses Seattleand its surrounding suburbs get enough exercise through play, sports and outdoor recreation, I teamed up with King County Parks and the Aspen Institute, a think tank.

Moving enough

Federal guidelinesset by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention call for all kids between 6 and 18 years old to be physically active for at least anhour every day. Anything from playing tag at recess to practicing basketball after school to riding a bike to a neighbors house counts.

Organized sports, whether in or out of school, might be the main way you think kids get exercise. Taking part in these programs, whether its a dance class or a swim team, gives kids a chance not only to be physically active but also to learn teamwork and grow more resilient. We found that about 80% of kids in King County have participated in sports programs.

Despite this, we found that only about a fifth of the countys youth get enough physical activity, which is lower than thenational average of about a fourth. States with similarly low rates of physical activity includeAlaska and Maine.

In King County, boys get more exercise than girls which is similar to national trends. However, we found that, unlike national trends, boys and girls are participating in organized sports at the same rate.

Engaging immigrants

My research partners and I also found that young immigrants and the children of immigrants were the most likely to be getting too little exercise.

Morethan one in five of the countys residents were born outside the U.S.We found that only one in 10 of all children who dont speak English at home are spending at least an hour per day being active.

Just half of these immigrants, many of whose families speakSpanish, Chinese or Vietnameseas their first language, have ever participated in an organized sport, like tennis or soccer, compared with almost 90% of their peers whose families were born here.

Further, we learned that children being raised in immigrant families were less likely to play at parks near their homes.

Identifying obstacles

We wanted to better understand what barriers are standing in the way of children and teens being more active. By conducting focus groups and interviews, we determined that the cost of joining teams and the challenges of shuttling children to practice and games are the biggest barriers to participation in everything from baseball to ballet both in and out of school.

Parent after parent expressed dismay at the expense. One parent told us the sports her family does are whatever we can find thats free.

Many Seattle-area clubs and recreation programs, typically run by local governments, provide scholarships. But we also found that scholarships are not enough to topple barriers in the way of many families.

For young immigrant athletes, for example, families have trouble learning how to enroll their kids in these programs when websites and the requisite forms are in English only.

Opportunities for young people to join teams and take part in sports through other means can be quite different from what immigrants are familiar with. A number of immigrant families expressed frustration that more sport and recreation programs were not offered directly at schools, which they said would make it more likely for their children to participate.

Here, its very expensive to learn how to swim, a father told my colleague. But all of my kids who went to school in South Africa, all of them learned how to swim and they are very good swimmers. It was made available to them at school and it was free.

Seeking solutions

In addition, many non-English speakers also told us that they dont feel welcome on teams.

We believe that one way to fix that problem would be for sports programs run by schools, the county and independent organizations alike to recruit and hire more coaches of color. Another would be ensuring that all coaches gettraining in diversity, equity and inclusion. None of the coaches in our coach survey reported being trained in these issues.

Not getting enough physical activity and losing out on the benefits of team sports doesnt just potentially harm the young people who are overly sedentary. It also takes a toll oncollegeand professional sports teams, as well as the official teams representing the United States at the Olympics and competitions like the soccerWorld Cupbecause it limits the available talent pool.

Following the release of our research in September, public health officials, policymakers, educators, businesses, professional sports teams and youth sports programs created theKing County Play Equity Coalition.

Guided by our findings, this coalition aims to make it easier for all kids in our region to join teams, play outside and stay active. The coalition will advocate for policies like longer recess and reduced fees for school sports, as well as help expand programs like green school yards andSoccer without Bordersthat give kids more places and possibilities for active play.

Julie McCleery is a research associate and lecturerCenter for Leadership in Athletics at the University of Washington. She wrote this for The Conversation.

Read or Share this story: https://www.kitsapsun.com/story/opinion/columnists/2019/12/18/exercise-shortage-northwest/2670276001/

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An exercise shortage in the Northwest - Kitsap Sun

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Home » Exercise Programs » An exercise shortage in the Northwest – Kitsap Sun