Todays Generation Of Children Seem To Have Very Thin Legs.

Post Reply New Topic

My Mum noticed something and I had to conceed to say she was right. Due to brothers car being off the road at the moment, I went with my Mum to give them a lift home as is a few miles and brother is on crutches so is not easy for him.
While we were waiting near the school, many children were walking to their parents cars (Hardly any walked home apart from one or two that lived in the housing site next to the school. (Schools now have wider catchment areas as there are less schools than there were).
But my mother made a statement. "The childrens legs are so thin". Now this was not just one child but we noticed that we could not see one child pass with decent calf muscles or mote solid looking legs.
Yet it was actually rare when I went to school a few decades ago to find a child who had thin legs without noticable muscles as everyone walked to and from school. It was nothing for a child in those days to walk a couple of miles if needed. In fact, when we were at school, and had a school outing we would walk there which was usually a couple of miles.... Three or four miles was considered perfectly normal for teachers to walk their class if they had some event on that they wanted us to see.
But yes! Every single child we saw pass from that primary school had very thin legs. It is like they don't walk anywhere to give them muscles?

I did so much walking as a kid, and a teenager, and a young adult that I should have legs like a bodybuilder by now. But I guess humans really are losing their ability to walk because they hardly do it anymore. Big shock.

But that's okay, because soon kids will have to live in plastic bubbles because they'll have no immunity to viruses because people kept trying to keep everything sterile during covid, and now kids are all getting really sick with RSV and strep throat. What a great future the adults have made for the kiddos.

I wonder if that was a problem after the 1918 flu pandemic. I really don't know since people didn't make as big of a deal about germs that long ago. They didn't even make that big of a deal about when my parents were young. My mother used to think I'd get pneumonia if I didn't dress warmly in the winter up but until fairly recently she didn't think leaving the stuffing in turkey could give me food poisoning. She does now, she puts in in a separate dish after the turkey is served. But I digress.

In 1918-19, a great many British (And others) died during that time and I think it was black death, but most died because they had comeback from the war (WW1) and were living in
crowded barracks for a while and had been in starving conditions due to the nature of the war, so when this virus hit them just before they were due to come home, their immune systems were already weakened and it was said that more died due to this than had lost their lives during the war and these sad deaths had been on both sides as the returning Germans and many others on the allies side had also been hit by the pandemic which was sad, but apart from the odd town or village which may have faced an unusually large amount of deaths which may have been locked down, they never once did any locodowns because they did not want the right to ones freedom which the allies had fought for to be erroded. They simply would not dream of doing that in those days!

But going back to the younger generations today, whilst some are in bad situations due to poverty, if there were an unexpected situation where fuel for vehicles and electricity supplies were to be cut off, a great many families would be in a desparate situation unable to cope! Yet in the past even through WW1 and then WW2 in most countries in Europe including the UK, if the fuel was cut off and the power was cut off, and transport such as trains and busses were suspended, life still went on, and to most, not much changed unless ones village/town or city had been destroyed or if an invading force had taken over. For many life went on as it always had done, as in those days one did not rely so much on such things. Even soldiers on both sides would march hundreds of miles to reach the battle if required. It may have taken them weeks, but they did it.

it is not just the relative lack of exercise, but also one needs to remember we live in the era of depleted soils from overpopulation/overuse of farmland, so we're not as well-nourished overall as our recent ancestors.

I can't say I've ever driven around looking at children's legs.

I don't find any difference between generations in my family. My daughters have muscular legs, similar to my sisters' in that age. My brother's kids are more skinny, similar to me and my brother in that age. Similar tendencies with children of my cousins.
Apparently, genes in my family are stronger than anything that might have changed between the generations.

The kids at school also don't strike me with anything unexpected about their body composition. Luckily, the plague of child obesity has not really reached where I live. Maybe the kids are on average taller now than they were 30 years ago.

Maybe the difference is mainly in the fashion that makes legs look more skinny?

well, when we were both spring chickens the styles back then were bellbottoms, so....

I see some weak looking kids, they don’t go outside and ride bikes or explore anymore.They sit inside playing video games and eating ramen.We hated being inside, it’s the opposite now.

if there were video games and such back in our day, i wonder if we'd still hate being inside?

I thought thin legs were a common thing for children well up into adolescence. I mean, you never see kids running around all muscle-y and buff. They just aren't physically able to do that, and in the cases where they do, it's a genetic abnormality or disorder or something. On my experience the only typically big thing on children are their heads. Really, kids always remind me of lollypops/suckers...teeny bodies, big ole heads.

I won't argue that most kids now probably spend less time outside playing so would likely be less fit as a result. In part it likely is a 'screen' related thing, but also safety. I have a daughter who has a son (he's eight). She is actually afraid to let him go outside and play (she thinks he'll get abducted or shot because social media tells her this) and were she to get over this fear and just let him go run around with some neighborhood kids, she would get no shortage of crap from other parents for doing such a thing. It would be seen as reckless or neglectful. I think that's crazy. I used to not only let my kids run around outside alone, but would often make them go outside and play because they were getting rambunctious inside and needed to go get some energy out. In what, 15/20 years, it went from normal to dangerous. I feel bad for kids coming up now for all the little things they are missing out on. It's like they live these childhoods where they don't really seem to get to live. I would hate to be a child nowadays.

Go a little further, because broadcast TV and Atari can get a little boring after a while. If computers with Internet and socialization with people all over the world, plus all kinds of streaming stuff existed, then I wouldn't mind at all having fun with those things and playing around all day after school. So, I guess children-of-now aren't fully to blame.

As far as legs go - I'd say in the past 20 years or so, it seems like the younger generation has gotten much taller. Is it possible "thinner legs" really means longer legs and these kids are going to grow up to be 6'4+?

I've also noticed that about today's children. It used to be that children were once allowed to run around outdoors and walk to school. Parents didn't worry so much about predators.

Mountain goat

Where I live it is about 35 degrees at night to 50 degrees Fahrenheit in the day

Only a couple people wear shorts

We're the children you were looking at wearing shorts or long pants?

Do you live somewhere really hot?

I don't know what you look like, but your post makes me wonder, how do the children's parents respond when you are just sitting around looking at their children's legs?

I've never noticed.

in amuuuurica, not quite so much as we are actually getting fatter/shorter in most population groups ['cept the wealthier set] and our life expectancy has gone down, opposite direction to the rest of the west which has grown taller and older. something is very wrong here in our land.

I don't know about all schools, but from what I've seen anecdotally there is a trend of getting less recess in schools, and a trend of more participation trophies. Parents need to stop giving their kids iphones and teachers need to stop giving participation trophies. Contests where there are not significant rewards for winning are lame and boring. I know people don't want Zuck spyware and Carmack quit. But I think VR will give people more exercise.