New | Overprotective parents partly to blame for children’s lack of fitness, academic says

Overly protective parents are partly to blame for the decline in physical fitness of Hong Kong children, who, according to a recent international study, are only half as fit as their peers in the West.

“Swimming, cycling and running are good aerobic exercises, but many Hong Kong schoolchildren just do not do them,” said Dr Lobo Louie Hung-tak, an associate professor at Baptist University’s department of physical education.

“Some parents consider swimming dangerous. Thus, many schools do not have swimming lessons to avoid receiving complaints from the parents,” he said.

Louie said parents often preferred their children to engage in “structured activities”.

“They may arrange for their children to play music and the like, because these could build up their portfolios and help them get into good schools,” he said.

A study by a team of academics from the University of South Australia on the cardiovascular fitness of children (aged between nine and 17) showed that youth today were, on average, 15 per cent less fit than their counterparts between 1970 and 2010.