Sports scientist Susanne Tittlbach.
There is still no reliable data for the second lockdown. In the first lockdown in spring 2020, scientists found that adults exercise less on average. There is also a social gap: people with a lower social status are even less active than they were before. Those with a higher social status and also sporty people, on the other hand, even increased their activity.
In the case of children and adolescents, colleagues from Karlsruhe found that they were even more active in everyday life during the spring lockdown. But the organized sporting activity has really gone to zero. How it is now in the autumn lockdown is not yet known. However, because it is now autumn and winter, the fear is that this positive effect of the spring lockdown will not be repeated.
No, because for it to be a lesson, the movement must be linked to cognitive activation, so the movement must also be reflected. It’s great that the sports teacher provides a binding stimulus to exercise. In addition, there should be a joint, virtual meeting during normal sports class time to discuss: How did you cope with the movement? What body reactions did you experience? Movement experiences should always be reflected on with the schoolchildren, otherwise it is “doing sport”, but not a physical education class that should enable them to act in sport.
Away with corona bacon: This is how you stay in shape despite restrictions
The home office has left its mark. Less exercise, baggy clothes and snacks that are always within reach: For many people, the lockdown at the start of the year means less focus on their own fitness. However, there are a few options for shedding pounds. This is how it works!
–
Age matters
Would that also apply to the 6-year-old first grader?
The younger the children, the more difficult it is to handle the technical possibilities and the more reflective in dealing with them. As with normal lessons, I have to break it down to age: With younger children, you have to do virtual exercises together and then reflect together in a child-friendly way. And of course you can never do as much at home as in the gym. Getting to know some sports doesn’t work at all. I can’t play five-a-side football there.
What would be suitable exercises?
Health and fitness exercises can work well as long as the child can attend a virtual conference and has space to do, for example, body-assisted exercises such as weight training. But even there we know that children from a socially weak status are more difficult to reach in homeschooling anyway.
Despite Corona: How to motivate yourself to exercise now
Keyword social status: I know a teacher who thinks it is dangerous for children to get intimate glimpses into the apartments of their classmates because the bullying could provoke. Do you still recommend turning on the camera?
If, as a teacher, I am concerned that bullying will happen, I have to look for other ways. Many virtual rooms offer the possibility of forming small groups, then only those can see each other. Or I can show the children how to set a different background so that you can’t look into the room. But that requires technical knowledge, with 6-year-old children it is certainly difficult for it to work. If virtual meetings don’t work out, child-friendly worksheets for self-assessment could also be used to accompany movement tasks.
Parents as role models
Can parents be of support during these special times?
Parents are great role models for the sports and exercise behavior of children and young people. There are plenty of studies that show that parenting activity plays a big role in whether children build active lifestyles over the long term. Maybe it’s a good thing that the parents take part in such a virtual sports lesson to see what is going on and what can be picked up differently with the children and when.
Many parents shouldn’t have time for this …
Yes, that is a huge problem, you shouldn’t overstrain it. For many families in particular, it is difficult enough to cope with everyday life. Then having to participate somewhere would create even greater difficulty. But you have to give the parents an awareness of how movement can come into everyday life, as far as personal resources allow. I think that’s important.
New Corona resolutions: Hairdressers are allowed to open, shops are not yet
In order to keep the number of infections under control despite the spread of new virus variants, the federal and state governments agreed on further measures on Wednesday. The lockdown is extended, but there are still some changes. The rules at a glance.
–
You have already mentioned several times the social gap that sufficient exercise in children depends on whether their parents are poor or rich, for example. Will the scissors get even bigger during Corona?
The social inequalities will increase, that is to be assumed, because school, physical education, sports club or sports club can no longer intervene in a moderating way. It all depends on the parental home right now. What is made possible there is possible – everything else is not. Everything has just been thrown back on the nuclear family. Our school system actually wants to balance out the social inequality in terms of health and exercise as much as possible. The situation is really precarious because the moderating influences outside of the family have just been reduced to almost zero.
Assuming that classical physical education is possible again: Can the resulting lack of movement and inequalities then even be made up?
A deficit can of course be made up again if you want to. The question is rather whether this year that children have now experienced will shape their later lifestyle because they have learned that inactivity is okay. I don’t allow myself any long-term prognoses. The danger is that we will lose the socially disadvantaged. I suspect that many children who were in the sports club before will go back again afterwards, because children’s motives for movement are simply very strong. But what about those who were previously difficult to reach, who then can no longer do anything with movement?
Missing sport for children: what that means for clubs, business and society
Bike paths can help
Do you see anyone else challenged besides school and parents?
I am thinking of the environment around us humans, i.e. what the conditions are around us that make movement possible. I would take the municipalities to their responsibilities: parks and green spaces, play equipment for children, training equipment for teenagers or young adults, but also safe bike and footpaths. Because if I, as a parent, know that the cycle path is safe, then I let my child cycle too. When children learn this, they are also willing to continue doing it independently later. Municipalities are asked to make the infrastructure movement-friendly, bicycle-friendly, walking-friendly. That is something very important.
When Corona was just declared a pandemic, you spoke of an “obesity pandemic” in an interview. Does Obesity Really Compare To A Virus?
Comparing an infectious disease with a disease of civilization is of course not easy. Nevertheless, diseases of civilization such as obesity or diabetes are responsible for a very high rate of deaths. That often goes under because as a person you have the feeling: “Well, I can get active again or eat differently, and then I could perhaps compensate for the negative influence of inactivity. So it’s not that threatening. ”While that doesn’t work that way with Covid because the cause is a pathogen. I wouldn’t even want to assume such a comparison. The only problem is that we have to be careful that this focus on Corona – and the current measures are really right and important – do not neglect other things. The Robert Koch Institute has calculated that, on average, Germans have become a kilo heavier during the corona pandemic. And here, too, there is again a gap: It doesn’t affect everyone, but rather the socially disadvantaged more than others.
–
