My parents never put me in sports – mostly because they:

1. Didn’t have the time to take me.

2. Didn’t have the money to pay for it.

3. They weren’t involved in sports as a kid.

4. They don’t know much about sports all together. (I never watched sports games on TV with them.)

HOWEVER….

if you read the study fully, it also says that CHORES is a type of physical activity as well…and THAT is definitely something I DID participate in! My father would always say: “Go pull weeds!” or “Clean your room” or “Take the dog out”…all physical activities that promoted movement in my youth. LOL

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Parents’ Endorsement Of Vigorous Team Sports Increases Children’s Physical Activity

ScienceDaily (July 6, 2009) — Parents who value strenuous team sports are more likely to influence their children to join a team or at least participate in some kind of exercise, and spend less time in front of the TV or computer, a new study says.

Researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and Duke University studied a sample of 681 parents of 433 fourth- and fifth-graders from 12 schools in Houston. They found that those parents who conveyed the importance of high-intensity team sports to their children had more active children. Both the boys and girls watched less TV and spent less time on their computers.

Endorsing all types of exercise – both team sports and individual sports – increased boys’ activity levels but not girls’, the study said.

“The difference between activity levels in the girls and boys had to do with the parents’ attitudes toward the types of activities. Parents encouraged sons to partake in vigorous- and moderate-intensity team and individual sports, and vigorous-intensity home chores, such as heavy yard work, more than they encouraged these activities for their daughters,” said lead author Cheryl Braselton Anderson, PhD. “There still is gender bias on encouraging boys to participate in certain sports and strenuous activities more than girls.”

Vigorous team sports included basketball and soccer, and moderate team sports included baseball/softball, volleyball and football. Intense individual activity included running, cycling, swimming and skating, and moderate individual activity included walking, biking around the neighborhood and golf.

Household chores were also included as a form of physical activity. Vigorous household chores included heavy yard work and moving furniture; moderate household chores included cleaning, raking leaves, weeding and carrying groceries.

read the rest here.

Start them young! LOL

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