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4B LIFEAEPlie Charlotte $ost Thursday, April 13, 2006 Physically active kids are much healthier kids Continued from page 2B overweight,” is how the feder al Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts it. Consider: • About 16 percent of chil dren are overweight, and that number is rising. Among chil dren age 6 to 10, the percent age of overweight kids more than doubled during a 20- year period ending in 2002. For children age 12 to 19, the overweight rate more than tripled. • About one-third of high school students do not take part in regular physical activ ity during a typical week. Even fewer take part in daily gym classes at school, the CDC says. “'I don’t think people are really, fully imderstanding the magnitude of what this means,’’’said Alicia Moag- Stahlberg, ®jecutive director for the nonprofit Action for Healthy Kids. Physical activity helps young people control their weight, reduce blood pres sure, lower their risk of dia betes and some kinds of can cer, and gain self-confidence. Exercise is part of a lifestyle of healthy living, along with good nutrition and proper sleep. This is not just about play time Getting kids to exercise is about preventing chronic health problems. The habits established early—good or bad—often last a lifetime. A 2006 long-term study, financed by the federal gov ernment, shows that physical exercise drops offenormoiosly as children move through their teen years into adult hood. For example, only 6 percent of white females got no exer cise in a typical week when they were adolescents. Bythe time they were young adults, 46 percent got no exercise. The same eroding pattern was true for males and females across all major racial and ethnic groups. Yet a lot of parents don’t see a problem. Polls shows par ents believe that a majority of children are in good or excel lent health. And it is parents who set the tone for exercise, particularly as the summer nears and the structure of the school day goes away So what can they do? Experts say the main sug gestion for parents is one they apply in their own lives: make exercise fun, not work. Encourage kids to do what they like to do: soccer, danc ing, swimming, jumping rope, skating, even navigat ing an obstacle course in the backyard. “If manyparents would just go back to the future and think about what fife was like when they were children— fiom hopscotch to the adven ture of climbing trees - it would go a long way toward promoting more physical activity by their kids,” said Cedric Bryant, chief exercise physiologist at the American Cotmcdl coi Exercdse. “If you are going to an amusement park, get a lot of walking in,” he added. ‘Tf you are taking a winter vacation, go cross-coimtry skiing. As a parent, you just have to do more planning—you have to look for ways to sneak in pleasurable physical activi ties.” Society doesn’t always make it easy, federal health officials say Communities are designed to encoxirage driving, not walking and bik ing. Safety concerns have limited the times and places for children to play outside. Schools have shrunk the time kids get for exeixase. However, there are also subtle ways for parents to make a child’s daily fife more active. Use the stairs instead of the elevator at the shopping mall. Make a family event out of active chores, like raking leaves. Forget driving the kids if a safe walk will do as well. As summer approaches, giving at least some structure to daily exercise becomes even more important, said Moag-Stahlberg, the leader of the healthy kids coalition. “As corny as it soimds, it really does mean sitting down with the kids and hav ing a family meeting,” she said. “How late can the kids stay in bed? How long can the TV be on? How can a parent find out what’s goii^ on? If we don’t have the discussion, that’s even worse.” Children and adolescents should get in at least one hour of physical activity on most days, if not every day according to the federal gov ernment. That 60-minute bloc per day can be broken into periods for kids—10 min utes here, 15 minutes there, Bryant said. ‘Tf you think about it, it’s just one hour out of 24,” he said. ‘Tt really isn’t an tmrea- sonable request.” On The Net: Action for Healthy Kids: http://wwwj3ctionforhealthykidsx) rg American Council on Exercise: http:/lw\vwjKefitness.org Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: hltp:/hvww.cdc.gov Ford Elementary School: http ://w\vweobb.k}2.gaits/ ■~ford/ National PTA: http://wwwpta.org/parent_resour ces.html College grads chase jobs, culture in big cities THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON-More col lege graduates than ever are flocking to America’s big cities, chasing jobs and cul ture and drivii^ up home prices. The Associated Press ana- l5^ed more than three decades of education data for the largest cities and found that while many have lost population, nearly all have added college graduates. The findii^ offer hope for urban areas, many of which have spent decades strug gling with financial problems, job losses and high poverty rates. They also spell trouble for some cities, especially those in the Northeast and Midwest, that have fallen behind places in the South and West in attracting highly educated workers. “The largest predictor of economic well-being in cities is the percent of college grad uates,” said Ned HOI, profes sor of economic development at Cleveland State University “Cities, in order to remain fiscally viable, have to have a package of goods and services that are atti'active to educated people.” In Philadelphia, 20 percent of people age 25 and older had at least a bachelor’s degree in 2004, up fiom just 7 percent in 1970. Despite the gain, Philadelphia continues to lag other big cities in its share of residents with college degrees. Among the top 21 largest cities, only Detroit, Cleveland and Las Vegas had a smaller share. In Pittsburgh, just over a third of those 25 and older had at least a bachelor’s develops software and train ing materials. She recently bought a home in the dty “I just enjoy walking aroimd looking at the archi tecture and the way people have renovated these 100- year-old homes,” Wankel said. ‘T love the landscaping and the lovely mix of many races, straight people, gays, sir^es, older people, younger people.” The AP analyzed census data fiom 21 of the largest cities fi'om 1970 to 2004. The AP used 10-year census data fiom 1970 to 2000, and the Census Bmeau’s American Community Survey for 2004. The 21 dties were diosen because of their size and loca tion to provide regional bal ance. The analysis was expanded for 2004, the latest year for data, to indude all 70 dties with a population of 250,000 or more. Nationally the figure stood at a httle more than a fourth. Some 84 percent had a hi^ school diploma or the equiva lent. By compaiison, in 1970 only a bit more than one in 10 adults had bachelor’s degrees and about half had high school diplomas. Seattle was the best-educat ed dty in 2004 with just over half the adults with bache lor’s degrees. Following dose- ly were San Fi'andsco, Raleigh, Washington, D.C., and Austin, Tfexas. MoUy Wankel, who has a doctorate in. educational administration, said she moved to the Washington area for a job, and the culture of the dty pulled her Sum the suburbs. Wankel, 51, grew up in eastern Tfennessee and works at a company that Communities are designed to, engour- “ ■■■" — biRi— le driving, not wafkfhg and oiKin b’atety concerns have linTited the timi and paces for cnildren to play outside. The analysis showed that while most states in the Northeast have high percent ages of college graduates, their big dties do not. Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey were among the top five states in the per centage of adults with college degrees in 2004. But Northeast placed no dty among the top five; only one from the region-Boston— was in the top 20. AmeriCare’S'Heaith AmeriCare Health '‘Sugar Creek'' Medkal center 721 W. 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