Fit Kids, Smarter Kids
by Jeff Galloway


Every Kid Can Be A Fit Kid—and a more successful adult.

“When done correctly, exercise produces a joy that enhances quality of life at any age”

If your kids were starting to contract a crippling disease that was preventable, wouldn’t you try to do what you could to keep this from happening?

Today’s kids are under a serious health threat and yet many parents and teachers are letting them slide into ripe conditions for degenerative diseases. If not recognized and addressed, many of the kids in our community will suffer significant health problems as young adults, resulting in reduced opportunities and premature deterioration of life itself. While many children are already on the path to degenerative disease, by taking action now, thousands of kids can turn this situation around.

Due to sedentary lifestyle and poor nutrition, today’s children are the least fit and the most fat of any generation on record. Experts who predict longevity, believe that these youngsters could be the first generation that does not live as long as their parents. More troubling is the fact that by letting children become sedentary and fat, we are setting them up for failure. In the research section of this book that overweight/sedentary kids have a much greater chance of degenerative diseases, much earlier in life. They tend to have less confidence, do more poorly in school and are less successful as adults. Do you want to allow this to happen to the kids in your family, or class?

This book offers a turnaround strategy. I know that it is possible because, at 13, I was a fat, sedentary kid myself. I had tasted exercise in physical education classes, didn’t like it, and searched for the lowest level of exertion I could get away with in exercise and academics.

Because of a requirement that I enroll in a sports activity after school during when I was 13, I chose track conditioning. My lazy friends were surprised but the decision was very logical, based on the options:

1) Being on the swimming team meant driving across town, and getting home very late.

2) I was terrible at basketball and didn’t want the other players to make fun of me.

3) The kid grapevine told me that the track coach was the most lenient teacher and coach in the school. According to reports from a lethargic student who had participated in this, you could run from the track to the woods (less than 200 yards) hang out with other lazy kids throwing rocks into the creek, and jog back at the end of the period. At the time, my grades ranked me in the lower half of the class.

As fate would have it, I fell in with several members of the cross country team (the group in school with the highest grade point average) who I liked and who actually enjoyed running. At first I enjoyed the jokes, gossip, and interplay of personalities—even though the running was tough. Week-by-week I found myself getting better in every way. Most of the runs were non-competitive and fun. As my peer group changed, I expected more out of myself in fitness and in class. A few semesters later, I made the honor roll.

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