Call to ban car run to school gates to tackle childhood obesity

[Northerner]

Parents should be banned from driving their children to school gates in a bid to cut down on a rising tide of childhood obesity, UK's leading public health expert has said.

Professor John Ashton, who took over as president of the Faculty of Public Health on Wednesday, said that if parents must drive their children to school they should have to drop them off a few hundred yards away so children get a small amount of exercise.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/n...tes-to-tackle-childhood-obesity-29392269.html

Totally agree! I walked to school from the age of 5 (with my slightly older sister!). No-one I knew had a car, and my dad didn't get one until I was 17! Kids need to learn not to be so dependent on cars to get them anywhere.

To be fair though, there are quite a few kids around here who walk to the local school and it's a bit of a hike.

 

[LeeLee]

The problem starts far earlier than school age. Walk through any town centre and you'll see children who are more than capable of walking, still being wheeled around in pushchairs for the speed and convenience of something to load the shopping onto, with the child as a counterweight. In China, where many of the pushchairs are manufactured, I saw just half a dozen of them in a whole month of travelling around. Children there are carried until they can walk, then they walk.

I got a huge amount of criticism from my peers when I allowed my daughter to walk to school on her own (about a mile) from the age of 11. She did have the bus fare in her pocket, but preferred to save it.

 

[Northerner]

Good point 🙂 When I was little babies were pushed around in prams, facing their parent. Now they are pushed around usually facing away from the pusher and with their heads at exhaust pipe levels so they get the full benefit of all that lovely pollution - can't do them much good for later life! Also, the pushchairs can fit onto buses so parents aren't walking as far as they once would have done with prams.

 

[Pumper_Sue]

It starts way before school though and carries on into teenage years. The problem is the computer. Children come home from school watch telly or play on the computer.
As a child of the 60's and early 70's we came home from school changed out of uniform and went out to play until evening meal was ready. 5 pm on the dot and you weren't late either. 😱 Homework then done. School was 3 1/2 miles away for Snr school..... you missed the bus you walked simple as that.
Same in the morning you missed the bus to school you walked (very few 2nd cars in the family) then for a bonus you were also punished by the head for being late.

 

[cakemaker]

I totally agree with all the previous responses. I have also become very critical and opionated of late, especially towards young parents. I swore that I never would but I have and my husband hates it. I complain about kids in pushchairs who have no right to be in them (kids too big or too small), not enough clothes on babies or too many clothes etc. Mums pushing pushchairs into shops I could go on but I'll seem like a right old grump.

I walked to school at the age or 5 but it was just at the end of the road. Junior school was a bit further but no main roads to cross. Generally you went to the nearest school and most were good and you learned to read, write and count by the age of 7. Senior school was further and I lived the furthest but we would call for each other until there were several of us all walking together. I certainly didn't want my parents taking me, they would have ruined all the fun we had.

Now with school league tables everyone who can afford it wants to send their kids to the BEST schools which are often further. I worked in a school and some of the kids had to pass other schools to get to it.

However; I must admit.... I used to walk my two older kids to school when they were little but then returnrd to work when my youngest started school. I then took the younger two to school by car then went to my school which was 3 miles or so but not on any direct bus route.

I was a busy mother with 4 kids and every minute counted in my day so having the car was necessary. I chose to work in a school simply because I wanted to look after my own kids and be at home when they were. I suspect that many mothers now HAVE to work and possibly don't have many options about where they chose to work so to get there they have to take the car but I agree that perhaps parking a 100yards or so away is a good option especially for other drivers. It can be a nightmare passing school gates in the morning. Drivers and especially parents seem to be totally unaware of other road users.

 

[cakemaker]

My two younger kids went to senior school in France. The system here is very different to England; sport is recognised and treated equally to the academic and practical subjects and the mark for sport is caculated with all the other subjects to find the average mark right up to the Baccalaureat level. They get one overall certificate, The Brevet (equivalent to GCSE) then the BAC (equivalent to A Level).

When my daughter was 18 she didn't want to do sport at school any more. I agreed, she was old enough to make up her own mind. For a whole term she didn't do it as the lessons were swimming, every Friday from 8am in an outdoor pool. When her average came back she had lost loads of points because of not doing sport. She then had to do it again but at least she was indoors in a gym so didn't mind so much.

I don't like forcing older kids to do sport but certainly younger ones need to be encouraged. Once they find a sport they like then they need to be encouraged to continue after school. My husband and many of his generation played football and cricket at a local level. He then went on to manage local clubs and then a league side. He used to have three teams in their local club a Sunday league side but it dropped of, now the club doesn't exist at all. He was talking to an old member recently who said the youngsters (18yrs plus) just aren't interested any more.

 

[Redkite]

Drivers and especially parents seem to be totally unaware of other road users.

This is the problem, and it's a vicious cycle because all these drivers make the walk to school dangerous, so more parents opt for the "safety" of a car journey, thereby increasing the volume of traffic even more. The approach to my son's primary school (ages 3-9) was along a narrow pavement, where cars would pull up alongside at an aggressive speed, sometimes even mounting the pavement. Several times I got bumped by people's wing mirrors. Then some would do a turning manoeuvre in the school gates. They only care about their own kids and no one else's, and sad to say women are the worst, especially those with huge 4WDs!