Family Fact: Common Sense

Family Quote: Good Guys Finish First

Family Research Abstract: Sedentary Teens

"To assess the level of concern among parents, Common Sense commissioned a poll from Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, the polling firm, which last month interviewed 1,000 parents with at least one child between the ages of 2 and 17 living at home.  The firm said 64 percent believed that media products in general were inappropriate for their families.  It said that 81 percent expressed concern that the media in general were encouraging violent, or antisocial behavior in children."

(Source:  Jim Ruttenberg, "A New Attempt to Monitor Media Content," The New York Times, May 21, 2003, Late Edition - Final, Section C, Page 1, referring to Common Sense Media: www.commonsensemedia.org.)

"'Good guys finish first,' says Dr. Ted Baehr, founder and chairman of the Christian Film & Television Commission(tm), the sponsor of the Annual Report to the Entertainment Industry, which analyzes the content and box office averages of the top 275 or so movies at the theatrical box office.

'Moviegoers seem to prefer movies reflecting the moral, spiritual values and standards of the Bible and Christianity,' Dr. Baehr asserts. 'They do much better at the box office than those which don't.'

For example, movies with very strong moral and Christian values and worldviews not only made the most money by far on average in 2002, they've also been making the most money ever since the Commission began comparing worldviews several years ago."

(Source: Tom Snyder, "Good Guys Finish First: Seven-Year Study of Content in Hollywood Movies Shows Moviegoers Prefer Moral, Christian Movies," Assist News Service, http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/s03030101.htm, referencing http://www.movieguide.org/.)

"Physical activity (PA) is a major determinant of morbidity and mortality, and has been identified as a national priority area for promoting the health of the US population," yet a new report in Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine continues, "Longitudinal studies have documented an age-related decline of 26% to 37% in total PA during adolescence, with additional decreases through young adulthood."

Using a sample of 410 male and 372 female adolescents, enrolled in 7th, 8th and 9th grade at the outset of the study, January 1990 through May 1993, five University of Pittsburgh researchers describe the decline of adolescent physical activity in junior and senior high school, and perhaps, too, the eventual decline of these students' health.

Eighty-five percent of the students included in this study reported a decrease in the number of physical activities, and only five percent an increase during the four year period of the study: "The mean number of reported activities declined by 56% from 7.05 in year 1 to 3.08 in year 4 (P= .000)."

However, when the researchers examined the actual amount of time that each teenager spent in the activities in which he was still involved, they found that "[a]mong those who reported the same activity in 1990 and 1993, the time spent on that activity did not significantly (range of P values for 12 activities, .06-.48) change during the 4 years," except that teen boys who played basketball actually increased their time commitment as they aged.

Significantly, this means that "[t]he decrease in total amount of PA observed in this adolescent sample seems to be primarily a function of a decrease in the number of activities rather than a decrease in the time spent on specific activities."

Given the facts that only 49% of American high school students are enrolled in Physical Education classes, only 27% have P. E. on a daily basis, and only two states (Illinois and Alabama) require daily P.E. through eighth grade, the family's role in fostering physical activity in children is essential. Helping a child to become interested in a wide variety of physical activities may be the key to lifelong physical activity, as the Pittsburgh researchers found that "the number of activities at baseline was the strongest predictor of the number of activities in year 4 for adolescent boys and girls (P= .000)." Negative predictors included lower socio-economic status linked to boys' lack of activity (P= .000), while race (P= .000) and older age (P= .03) at baseline were correlated to girls' lower physical activity involvement.

The authors of the study offer this comment: "With less than a 50% chance that an adolescent will continue to participate in an activity during a 4-year period, but an 80% to 90% chance that an adolescent will continue to not participate in an activity during the same 4-year period, it seems prudent to have children participate in various activities during their childhood years rather than specializing in 1 or even 2 activities in which they will probably not continue to participate." Thus, exposing children to a wide variety of physical activity may well be the best guarantor of lifetime physical activity-and improved health.