Fighting Obesity
Should Kids Walk to School?
By Daniel Muniz

Over a generation ago, about half of the nation’s children walked to school. Today, that number is about 16 percent. However, many governmental entities and activists see the current situation as an opportunity to encourage kids to walk to school in order to fight obesity. The media has certainly publicized obesity in children and as a result, many state legislatures have tried to tackle the problem. There is no doubt that children have many more opportunities for sedentary activities especially if they are raised by parents who are sedentary or by parents who are uninvolved in their lives.

Consequently, there is now a growing movement to fight childhood obesity and encouraging kids to walk to school has become one of many possible solutions.

The benefits are obvious. Children can get an easy workout and good physical activity from a long walk. Also, traffic congestion gets slashed because far fewer vehicles are clogging up the roads to drop kids off at school. I personally love the summer time because I can quickly zip to work in the mornings but during the school year, I can easily spend 30 minutes or longer burning gas just to move two miles outside of my neighborhood.

Although the benefits of children walking to school are obvious, so are the drawbacks.

One obvious complaint in today’s affluent society is that schools are too far away for their children to walk to. For most people, that problem is simply not true. Even a little kid can walk a couple of miles to an elementary school. In the past, generations of people did so and they even did it under the most severe conditions like trudging through five miles of snow, uphill both ways (I am sure that there are plenty of people who have heard similar stories from their parents or grandparents).

Weather plays a pretty big role too, mostly because if there is a way to prevent a child from walking in harsh weather, then many parents will opt to take their kids in a dry safe car to school. And that leads up to safety. Traffic is dangerous even for adults. Children are still learning to become responsible and they are fine tuning their judgment. And some drivers are nuts. As a result, safety is a pretty big factor if a kid has to walk through heavy traffic in order to get to school.
 

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But perhaps the most elusive factor is the fear of crime. The executive director of the Texas Bicycle Coalition, Robin Stallings, explains it this way:
 

"When a child gets abducted in Florida, we hear about it in Texas," Stallings said. "And it scares the heck out of us. It's any parent's nightmare. All the statistics in the world that tell you that they're more likely to be killed in an automobile crash than be abducted doesn't change that fear." Source: The San Antonio Express News

Even so, the fear is not something that can be easily shaken off. Below are some responses from a few acquaintances about this topic:
 

I walked to school too. It was about two miles away. I always had a friend or two walking with me, though, so it didn't seem like that big of a deal. However, I don't think I'd want my kid walking to school if I had one. I'd be too nervous of the possibilities.

We have 17 kids within 5 houses on our street. High School- 5 Middle School- 2 Elementary- 8 Pre-School- 2 There are four moms that have the elementary kids, and one of us is always paying attention and in charge of the group. The older boys walk together, usually w/o a parent, and sometimes they walk with the younger ones. But we are lucky because we live in a development close to the school with lots of neighbors paying attention and we feel safe. We live three blocks from the school. Except of course for mini-vans getting stolen!!! Sometimes I feel better having them on bikes or scooters. I think if there is a stranger trying to talk to them, they can get away faster.

I have a 10 year old son and I probably would not allow him to walk to school unless I walked with him or he walked with a group of children accompanied by adults. With all the horrific stories we hear daily of child abductions I think now more than ever we take greater responsibility in child safety. Right now he rides the bus from outside our town home. The bus stop is just down the complex and he waits with his friends and other children and parents. Even still, I still wait in my car for him to get on the bus and only once he is inside the school bus I leave for work. I never allow him to go anywhere outside of my view... It may seem [like] over protection, but I don't know what I'll ever do if anything were to happen to him. I guess I'm an extremely safe parent! P.S. When I was a young girl often times I would walk home from school, but as many of you can agree times have changed in a sad and scary way!

When I was a kid, I walked to school most of the time and distance wasn’t really much of an issue. Kindergarten was not far away and elementary school was right up the block from my house (I could actually see some of the buildings from my own backyard). Middle school and junior high was different because it was across town and it was quite a hike although my dad usually dropped me off in the mornings. I also lived in a rough neighborhood but I never thought much of it because there was always a steady stream of students walking alongside with me down the same path.

However, my parents moved to the suburbs of San Antonio when I began high school so walking became a thing of the past, mostly because of the enormous distances.

Below is very different opinion about the subject:
 

I don't have kids, so just take this with a grain of salt... I think there is just as much danger now as there was when we were kids, but the media need sensationalized news, so it is reported much more often and gets more press. And don't forget that a large (don't have the exact figures) percentage of kid abuse/kidnapping is done by people the kids know. I think that once a kid reaches a certain age, say 9 or 10, they will be fine walking to school. My mom walked us to school until about then, and it was mostly because we were crossing major streets. You can't keep them in prison forever. We had the "stranger danger" program in grade school educating kids about not talking to strangers and certainly not accepting rides. I think people are overly paranoid, but again, I don't have kids and this is just my opinion.

I would have agreed with this opinion until I had kids and that changed my entire outlook. I understand the statistics and the media sensationalisms about horrific crimes. But I also realize that as a parent, there are plenty of things that I cannot control except perhaps exposure to danger, especially to perverts. And that is something that I can exercise some sort of influence in and that is what probably motivates many parents in not allowing their children to walk to school.

So it is really tough for me to say either way even though I grew up in a rough neighborhood and I walked most of the time from school. But overall, I would probably have to side with the people who feel that our current environment is too unsafe for kids to walk to and from school because of too many perverts and degenerates. Unless the circumstances are better, there are other safer ways for children to get more physical activity in their lives.

However, in all reality, it is not really an issue for me because as long as I stay in my current house, my children will have to be driven to school because of how the neighborhood is situated. But I would like to publish other people’s opinions on this subject and on how they feel about it.

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COMMENTS

A simpler solution to this problem is to bring back Physical Education. In our county many students have little or no physical education. If it were made a requirement for all children to take Physical Education each day, they would at least be getting some physical activity. When I went to High School, I had PE every year because it was required to graduate. Now only one year is required to graduate in our state. I assume that no one has mentioned this because then it might take a few minutes from Math and Language Arts which are "testing" subjects. -Cheryl