Youth sports and the bliss of limitless potential

Speaking of new cabinet names and posts, the president-elect ought to run and hire Donna Lopiano as Secretary of Youth Sports or some sort of Youth Sports Czar. In a speech in August at the Chautauqua Institution (it was rebroadcast the other day on the local public radio station),  the good doctor related the connection between success, health, and sports for all children as Title IX hit its 36th anniversary.

Lopiano makes the case for youth sports as a healthy lifestyle booster, which, along with our views here on smart, natural farming and food-making, sounds good to us. But despite the gains of Title IX, the lifestyles of today’s youth — encouraged by their parents — are leading them to an unhealthier way of life, with too much TV and computer time and not enough exercise. The result is a sedentary existence that, Lopiano predicts, will lead today’s generation of younger children to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents and “if we continue with two out of three kids not getting even the most minimal physical activity, then one out of every three children born in the Year 2000 is going to be a type-2 diabetic. And economically, we cannot afford to deal with that kind of a health statistic.”