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Let Kids Walk To School – To Combat Obesity

by Gopalan on May 15 2009 6:30 PM

Flaunting your cars does no good to you folks. Ask your children to walk their way to the school. That is a definite way of combating obesity, says an Australian expert.

Pedestrian Council of Australia chairman Harold Scruby said parents were addicted to cars and the alarming rate of childhood obesity was increasing as kids stopped walking to school.

“The World Health Organization has attributed car dependency to our rising rate of ill health,” Mr Scruby said.

“We're now chauffeuring our children everywhere... and many children see play as something you do in your room.”

Mr Scruby said good habits must be formed early as Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showed childhood obesity reached 7.8 per cent last year.

Between 20 to 25 per cent, or one million, Australian children and adolescents are overweight.

He said kids stopped walking as parents became increasingly worried about them becoming involved in a road accident or the target of pedophiles.

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But Mr Scruby said the average death toll from road accidents per 100,000 people a generation ago was 30 but was now six, Ipswich Queensland Times reported.

“We're certainly not advocating that children walk to school on their own and we're very strong on the message that until they're 10, children should always hold the hand of an adult,” he said.

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“A lot of people say they have to drive and we accept that - we're asking parents and carers to leave their cars between half a kilometer and a kilometer away and walk with their children.”

Source-Medindia
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