Prague, Feb 18 (CTK) – The Czech children’s physical fitness is dramatically worsening, it ensues from a survey conducted by the Czech Olympic Committee (COV) that compares the sports results of 90,000 children aged seven to 16 in 1997-2007 and in 2014, daily Lidove noviny (LN) wrote on Thursday.
COV chairman Jiri Kejval told LN that the results were not better in 2014 than before in any event and age category, but on the contrary, there is a “shocking” decline in some of them.
Kejval mentioned as an example the fact that 16-year-old girls leap in standing jump to a distance that is 30 centimetres shorter than it was in the first period under survey.
Experts say there are several factors behind this development, including the attitude to children’s upbringing.
Parents do not motivate their children to move and the two hours of pyhsical education at school is too little to redress the situation, LN writes.
Martin Musalek, from the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports of Charles University, told LN that children are clearly doing worst in endurance events, “while aerobic fitness is an important precondition for the quality of life in adult age.”
Aerobic fitness is the capacity to take in, transport and utilise oxygen while performing a fitness task.
The children’s poor physical activity is reflected in various problems that afflict them, such as a round back, they are flat-footed, have flabby muscles, and younger and younger children suffer from diabetes and every third underage child is obese, LN writes.
The children’s sole opportunity for sports activity is often physical education at school, but the quality largely differs, which is also due to that the teachers do not often have the needed qualification, LN writes.
In addition, head teachers recommend activities in which the risk of injury is the smallest to be chosen in physical education lessons because children who are not used to going in sport are more prone to injuries, LN writes.
