Graehm Gray: Structured vs. Unstructured Time-The New Battleground
My friends, we are back to school. Summer has come to an end and the fall school schedule quickly approaches. In many parts of the country, school has either started or is about to today! That’s right, those yellow Thomas school buses will be crowding the streets. The slow speed school zones are in force and kids are crossing the streets-so watch out! Lunches and snacks are being prepared at home. Please make them healthy! After school activities are being scheduled. And parents, the driving begins again! OMG! Another season is upon us. It seems that this summer went quicker than most. I guess it was because it was filled with so many activities. There was barely enough time to enjoy the peaceful time off the road. Oh well, here we go again. So I begin my new season with another issue that has caught many by surprise as we all go back to school-there is a new push to eliminate “unstructured” playtime-also called recess and morph it into structured time-like physical exercise (PE). The reason-from the “more exercise time will help stop childhood obesity” side-is just that. These advocates feel that our children need to burn off more calories in a structured exercise program to balance the calories/food being consumed. There is a good point there-balance. Remember as I have said in many articles, the calories-as food that are consumed must ...
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