Get yourself to grade school.

[RADcatchers]

They didn't even teach health or nutrition in most schools. I just read a study from 1986 that interviewed teachers in 1981 and reported only about half of them did any nutrition lessons.

Kids socialize just fine. Video games, smartphones, and social media ARE socializing.

Oy vey.....
They can play sports video games. But interacting with people is not the same.


hey....70's & 80's a shout out to the
food pyramid...

What Twilight Zone episode is this?

 

[lostcreek1]

In general kids are healthier and more coordinated today and more capable in general to handle anything, including sweating, than kids were 40 years ago.

No way this is true, obesity is a lot higher than it was 40 years ago. Anxiety and depression rates are out the roof compared to 40 years ago.

 

[CoachCeetar]

No way this is true, obesity is a lot higher than it was 40 years ago. Anxiety and depression rates are out the roof compared to 40 years ago.

_diagnosed_ anxiety and depression.

Which, arguably, means they're DEALING with it. which is the healthy thing.

Not saying there aren't plenty of health issues. I just feel like kids today are more aware, more prepared to deal with it, and more educated on what that means.

I just find this thread to be very "Get off my lawn!" and I disagree.

 

[Vertigo]

what does that have to do with their specific health at 5, 10, 15? It hasn't caused or contributed to any of those things yet.

Ummm…..ok.

Type 2 Diabetes in Children and Adolescents- A Focus on Diagnosis and Treatment - Endotext - NCBI Bookshelf

 

[JayW]

SAT scores are way up from when most of the posters went to college, so kids must be learning something. And the level of college softball has never been better, so somebody must be working out and practicing. Kids are doing fine.

 

[RADcatchers]

_diagnosed_ anxiety and depression.

Which, arguably, means they're DEALING with it. which is the healthy thing.

Its rise is unhealthy.

Not saying there aren't plenty of health issues. I just feel like kids today are more aware, more prepared to deal with it, and more educated on what that means.

I just find this thread to be very "Get off my lawn!" and I disagree.

Interesting,
Maybe it's your lawn? Simply, you had one perspective than others. Glad you shared your perspective.

The discussion question was how has change affected youth?

At least can agree that there has been change right?!

Pros & cons.

 

[Vertigo]

SAT scores are way up from when most of the posters went to college, so kids must be learning something. And the level of college softball has never been better, so somebody must be working out and practicing. Kids are doing fine.

Actually SAT scores have trended down in Verbal. Slightly increased in math depending on the year.

Average SAT Scores Over Time: 1972–2023 · PrepScholar

What were the average SAT scores for 2021, 2020, 2019, and earlier? Find out in our historical guide to SAT averages back to 1972.

blog.prepscholar.com

ETA: The SAT has also been redesigned over the years where it is believed they are easier now than 20-30 years ago. You also have waaay more parents shelling out big bucks for private SAT tutors.

 

[JayW]

The SAT's at public universities in Florida are at an historic high. A lot of people who attended Florida couldn't get in now.

 

[LEsoftballdad]

_diagnosed_ anxiety and depression.

Which, arguably, means they're DEALING with it. which is the healthy thing.

Not saying there aren't plenty of health issues. I just feel like kids today are more aware, more prepared to deal with it, and more educated on what that means.

I just find this thread to be very "Get off my lawn!" and I disagree.

For the record, I laughed not at your meme, but at your take. Talk about out of touch...

 

[Strike2]

one of the elementary schools in the district was literally closed for asbestos remediation and they bussed the kids to our school, mid-late 80s. They didn't fully phase out leaded gas until 1996 in the US. There's lot of evidence that kids were lead-poisoned.



well, studies. Science. essentially, obesity (And what we call obesity has many gradients) is a symptom, not the cause. You can be 40lb overweight and still have a healthy diet and low cholesterol, etc.

We do know that BMI is a pretty poor statistic to use, and that's essentially how obesity is defined. But a muscular teen may fit the strict definition of obesity, due to body size, muscles, etc. Bodies come in many types.

That's not to say there's not an overall sugar/fat problem in America in general, just that "waah, kids are fat these days" is hardly a useful argument. And regardless of what's going to happen if they stay overweight for another 20 years, a 5'5" 170lb kid is not necessarily less healthy than the 5'5" 140lb one.

I just think we could do with less denigration of youth. I don't even know if I'd assert that the average grade school kid does less physical activity in general than 30-40 years ago. All that stuff feels purely anecdotal. "I ran around when I was a kid!" Did you? Or did you ride your bike at 50% effort half a mile to your friends house and spend 3 hours smoking and wandering around the woods?


In NJ there's a law requiring students grades 1-12 take at least 150 minutes of health/PE a week. You think they passed that because students were already doing that 40 years ago? nah.

You've got the NFL Play 60 initiative to get kids physically active more. Not because they were already doing it, because they _weren't_.

We've learned so much about health in the past few decades, and we're applying it. I bet more kids take vitamins, eat more balanced diets, etc, than they did in 1985.

There is so much nonsense here. First, leaded gasoline and asbestos remediation doesn't even come close to meaning that kids were eating, drinking, or even breathing the stuff. There are far more unhealthy kids from poor diet, smoking, and drug use than there ever were from lead and asbestos exposure.

Really funny how you talk about "studies" and "science" with nothing to show. I guess the link I posted earlier to an actual NIH study on the rapidly climbing child/adolescent obesity rate flew right past you. We're not talking about the bulked up football player who breaks the BMI chart, although even that kid is probably carrying way too much extra weight around. There are literally mountains of "studies" and "science" showing increasing childhood obesity rates and the link, especially early in life, to severe health problems.

If there is any one metric that clearly shows the condition of overall health in younger people, it's the percentage of young adults fit for military service. In 2022, the ineligible rate was 77%...up from 71% in 2017.

Even More Young Americans Are Unfit to Serve, a New Study Finds. Here's Why.

The updated figures paint a picture of what is currently plaguing military recruiters in many of the service branches, with a shrinking pool of potential service members available to them.

www.military.com