Time to go out and play, but where?

CHENNAI : Srikanth* is a 12-year-old student of a private school in the city. For the past year, he and his schoolmates haven’t been able to play during Physical Training (PT) period as the school does not have a ground. The little open space available is now being dug up to make way for another building. Back home, too, his apartment complex has only a small playground for toddlers, and outside, there is no place to move as he resides on the bustling Choolaimedu High Road. Srikanth ends up watching cricket on television, rather than playing.

“Both my parents work and don’t want me to go out alone to the park. Over the weekend my father takes me to a park near Kodambakkam,” he says. Srikanth, like many other children finds himself caught in the sprawling concrete jungle that we call cities, where every inch of land is looked as a means to monetise. The lack of adequate number of playgrounds and open spaces is leading to more children living sedentary lifestyles. “My son has become extremely lazy and is gaining weight rapidly,” says K Rekha. “There is no place to play in the apartment complex and his school also has only two hours of play time in a week. He can’t play cricket on the street because of traffic. Even the public park gets extremely crowded, especially over the weekend.”

The World Health Organisation has termed childhood obesity as an ‘exploding nightmare’. In India, a 22 per cent prevalence rate of obesity was reported in children and adolescents aged between 5-19 years. 
“PT classes are not taken seriously by children, parents and sometimes even the schools themselves,” says S Sukumaran,* a PT teacher at a private school in the city. “Children make excuses to study rather than play. I have been teaching for over 15 years  and I see a trend of more overweight children in schools now. PT classes need to be taken as seriously as any other class.”

Doctors attribute the growing issue of obesity to laid back lifestyles and unhealthy eating habits. Dr A Somasundaram, secretary, Indian Academy of Pediatrics, Tamil Nadu Chapter, says, “Children tend to stay indoors and thus don’t burn the extra calories from eating junk food.” He points out another oft-ignored benefit of playing outside is the exposure to the sun. “A lot of children and adults alike have a vitamin D deficiency. Sunlight is the only source of vitamin D and it is imperative to absorb the vitamin D between 10 am to 2 pm. It is important for the bones, brain, and proper hormonal and endocrine functioning.”

Urban planners too have a challenging task — of creating or reclaiming land for use as open spaces. “You cannot stop in-migration and urbanisation and as long as that exists, a welfare state has to provide housing and water,” says NV Rakhunath, retired chief planner, Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA). “We have lost many water bodies and open spaces due to this reason as the government looks at lakes and open spaces to fulfil this need. It is not practical to expect a city to have stringent norms for public playgrounds.

There are norms that dictate that a certain number of open spaces be dedicated to an area depending on the density of population there. But they are applicable for greenfield projects and cannot be applied to old cities like ours.”Rakhunath says vertical development is the solution. “Urban renewal is the need of the hour,” he said. “Multi storey buildings will support the dual purposes of catering to housing needs and free up space  to create more open spaces.”

Childhood obesity leads to all problems
A study published in the Indian Journal of Medical Research in 2016, titled ‘Epidemiology of childhood overweight & obesity in India: A systematic review’ says childhood obesity is a known precursor to obesity and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in adulthood. However, it added that the magnitude of the problem among children and adolescents in India is unclear due to paucity of well-conducted nationwide studies and lack of uniformity in the cut-points used to define childhood overweight and obesity.

It’s everywhere
“Our review shows that overweight and obesity rates in children and adolescents are increasing not just among the higher socio-economic groups but also in the lower income groups where underweight still remains a major concern,” the study says.