A Deadly Trend

The major threat to the future health of kids of my generation was cigarettes. Of course, cigarettes are still around but their use has plummeted.

We forget that there was a time when the use of cigarettes was nearly universally confined to men and boys. In one of the most perverse advertising campaigns of all time, ""Virginia Slims", a women's cigarette, advertised their slogan, "You've Come A Long Way Baby" on the women's professional tennis circuits. A horrible death from lung cancer was something that women were told they had earned the right to. Equal pay and passage of the Equal Rights Amendment must have been a little too much to ask for but corporate financed death was an equal opportunity killer.

Now girls are participating in another male dominated  pastime that may very well one day lead to as much misery as smoking-obsessive use of video games. Metabolic disorder, type II diabetes, heart problems, high blood pressure, increased incidences of cancer, more substance abuse and depression are the fruits of an inactive lifestyle. We now are raising children whose life expectancy is shorter than our own. The body, whether horse or human must move or decay at an accelerated rate.

There is no third option.

Television certainly reduced the amount of exercise kids get. The time spent in P.E. and recess in school has plummeted. And then a new toxin was introduced into kids lives--video games.

Simple question--ask yourself--who gets the most exercise a heroin addict living on the street or a 12 year old child addicted to video games?

There is no question that these games are psychologically addictive for many kids. They provide the human body with a deadly cocktail of excitement without exertion. Our bodies did not evolve to become revved up on a constant basis without moving to burn off some of those stress hormones.

Absent actively abusing one's child there are few things worse that one can do than to allow one's child to become a slave to a blinking screen.

Of course, I believe that there is no form of physical activity better for a kid than learning to ride and train horses. When taught properly the experience is physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually beneficial to the child. But any form of consistent physical exercise is great for a child and every impediment to receiving that exercise is morally no better than a pack of cigarettes.

Of course, the best way to get your kid moving is to move right along with him.

(In a rational world how could a kid possibly be more fulfilled with a video game than doing mounted arechery?)