SUNDAY FORUM

• Best advice for kids: Move, move, move • Winning the battle for fit kids • Time to 'run outside and play' • No room in schedule for exercise • Health concern led to quest for fitness • Fitness bits • What you can do now • Part #1 of series (Sep. 26) • Part #2 of series (Oct. 3) YOUR VOICE

As today's Forum story on children's fitness makes clear, running, being outside and playing are three of the wisest things ever told to a child.

But today's children must contend with unsafe neighborhoods, busy family lives, pedestrian-unfriendly suburbs and couch potato technology. For the sake of our children's health, we need to get back to that more active world. And taking a cue from our parents' old command, here's how we can do it:

"Now run." Just as they need to be told to wash their hands and learn their math facts, children need instruction in physical activity. And they need it often.

We stand with the Centers for Disease Control, American Association of Pediatrics, Kentucky Medical Association and President's Council on Fitness in calling for more physical education.

Thirty minutes of daily physical activity would build children's endurance, coordination, flexibility and strength. It would also build happier children who would handle the rigors of their day better and learn the beneficial teamwork skills that go along with group activity.

Schools will struggle to find the time in the school day or the money for more phys ed classes, but the need is critical.

We urge the Kentucky and Ohio departments of education, health and education professionals and parents to find creative ways to increase activity - an activity period to end the school day, more intramurals, more play materials for recess.

"Now run outside." Two main obstacles stand in the way of this good advice: the lack of good routes for pedestrians and of overall safety. Many communities don't have sidewalks, bike lanes or destinations. Real or perceived danger keeps many children inside.

For solutions, we recommend the Safe Routes to Schools national initiative and Active Living Leadership from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The city of Erlanger referred to the Active Living approach in developing its activity master plan, Step Forward, Erlanger. We roundly applaud that vision, which creates a seven-mile loop of sidewalk that would connect homes, schools, businesses, churches and parks.

We can't pretend there's a simple answer for safer neighborhoods. Designating community walking nights and encouraging the "walking school bus" idea of groups of children walking to school together are ways to build critical mass for activity. Concentrating police protection and street safety campaigns on those times and locations can increase participation.

"Now run outside and play." The most tragic part of the fitness decline is that children have forgotten how to play. The best way to relearn it is by families engaging in physical activity.

Forget about washing the car or paying the bills for an afternoon. The next time the kids ask, go play.