Greeley - Weekdays

It would be nice to say that children are regularly active at home, but this isn't always the case. During the weekdays, parents work and children go to school. Naturally, children are likely to engage in one or two physical activities while at school, but what about when they're home? In observing a neighborhood in Greeley, there is a distinct difference between weekends and weekdays. During the weekdays, the most one might see of kids is either early in the mornings when they're heading off to school, or in the afternoons when they're returning home after being picked up by a parent.

Toys lay abandoned in a yard in this photo, showing that although it's fairly sunny outside and the weather is still warm, children are not out playing. Instead, they are indoors, and they have been there since returning home from school. There could be a variety of reasons why -- homework should come first before playing, as playing is often seen as a reward. Perhaps the child is sick, or perhaps they've played so much all day long that they're too tired to continue playing more now that they're home. However, in watching the children I noticed their parents ushering them inside, themselves exhausted from getting up early for work.

When children are outside, they need some sort of supervision, but parents cannot necessarily do that when they're indoors preparing dinner or taking a breather from a long day of their own work-related activities. Because of this, children are less likely to be active outdoors. With no one to watch them, their only choice is to be indoors either doing homework, or playing a game inside. While this is understandable, it does bring up a good point -- children are encouraged to be active by their parents. If their parents are not encouraging their activity, they can easily fall into a habit of staying indoors, playing video games or watching television, and simply not exercising.

It is important for those of us in the public health field to find ways to better encourage parents to encourage their own children to be active. At such young ages, children are shaped by the adults in their lives, and it isn't enough to expect that they will be active just at school -- they need to be encouraged to be active at home as well, even if it's to take a walk around the block with their parents, or being allowed a quick game in the front yard before trekking indoors to do homework.