The Rounding

When I was young, I really wasn't particularly active. Due to a number of health problems, my activities were restricted to those less strenuous. I did a number of things most children did, but not those that pushed my body too hard.

Because of that, as well as one of my health problems, I was a little pudgy. Earlier, I could only be described as round, but as a teen, I always carried around a belly. It was my cross to bear, and I still do.

At least my activities were stimulating, at least for me. I built models, rode my bicycle, explored the woods behind our house, walked to Pic n' Save for my parents, went to the library by myself, stuff that seems, in my still young mind, to be fairly harmless. I did play some sports, though the last time I played football, it shattered my collarbone; no future in the NFL for me. No, most of my activities were really centered around learning and exploring. Not school work, but self directed education.

The other day, we went to the water park. Right now, swimming is a real pain for me; I have an injured shoulder, the one that many years earlier I busted playing back-lot football. My plan was to laze around in a float and maybe wade in the wave pool. Being a poor swimmer, even when my shoulder isn't hurting I prefer those activities anyway.

When we arrived at the water park, our friends had already been there for awhile in our shared cabana. I'm body shy, and always dread the moment I need to remove my shirt to hit the liquid. You see, I still have a bit of a belly. A bit more, in fact. Thin arms, thin but somewhat well-shaped legs, and a belly. I worry that people will look and comment, as they are so apt to do.

Fortunately for me, I was in good company.

I would have to guess that a good three quarters of all the adolescent boys there were rounder than I ever was. Their parents, namely good ol' dad, were my size or bigger. Well tanned, muscular, frequently tattooed but with bellies that sometimes rivaled my own. Definitely the wrong sort of oneupmanship.

In total, I would have to say that two thirds of the males there had my body form.

For the first time in my life, my shape wasn't the exception, it was the rule.

The parents' condition could be forgiven. With age comes weight, usually, and once you hit your late thirties and early forties, it becomes a challenge. But these kids?

Even as we were heading home, I noted a number of local boys who wore the same body shape. Sadly, there were also a number of girls who looked the same.

Maybe we've become too focussed on activities that require more mental exercise than physical. It would be easy to spout off the numbers from the government about how we've become less active overall, but that's not my point.

I feel for these kids.

I know that by the time I reached sixteen I was capable of making twenty mile round trips on my Schwinn Continental 10-speed. I may have had a belly, but I had rather muscular legs. Some of my other friends who did the same were veritable rails, with barely any body fat; how I envied them. Yes, I still built models and yes I was still a bookworm. But my parents rarely took me those places I needed to get my things, and when I became interested in girls they seemed even less interested in giving me lifts to see them (Mom, Dad; you were wise). If I wanted something, it was either walking or bicycling.

To be honest, I loved my bike.

I don't see children today riding bikes as we once did. Maybe it's because the most common ones today, derived from off-road and mountain bike designs, are heavier than the bantam weight Schwinns, Huffys and Raleighs of my youth. Perhaps its our now fear based culture; we are afraid of letting our children wander beyond our sight.

Or maybe it's this thing I'm typing these words into.

Maybe it's all forms of distraction that keep us indoors. We've built our worlds around things that require that we sit and stay. Our children are growing up in those worlds.

Don't get me wrong, I feel that the computer and our networked world has been one of the greatest creations in human existence. With the click of a button I'm chatting with friends oceans away. I don't play most computer games but there is a Wii in the house, and it is a whole lot of fun. Many of the children I worked with told me about all the things they have made their game systems do, about how many hours they sat and explored all the little niches of their virtual worlds.

Sat and explored. It's fun.

So is bicycling, or flying kites, or hitting a few at the diamond.

And really exploring.