[noah91734]

> A poor home life increases chances of mental illness and decreases chances that someone will drive you to practice.

That you need to be driven at all to exercise is a huge part of the reason why exercise and fitness rates are so low in our youth. Our grandparents and great grandparents walked miles to go to school five days a week, and we've built our cities such that this is impossible or dangerous. We now live in towns that sprawl endlessly, and most of us forbid our kids to go outside unsupervised, so kids never find each other and play amongst themselves.

And for what? What exactly are we gaining by building our cities and our towns like this? It makes us all unhealthier because we are forced to drive everywhere. It isolates us and our children, who are now lonely on top of being merely physically inactive. We are poorer because we spend so much money on car loans, car insurance, gas, and parking. We are just as likely to die a violent death in the suburbs due to the increase risk of car crashes. We are isolated, poor, unhealthy, and unhappy, and in exchange we get... what exactly?

> The paper isn’t public so “controlling for confounders” is all you get, but I doubt they went through all the effort to have deep, revealing conversations about the home life or other nuanced cofounders of each participant.

The study was conducted in Taiwan which does not suffer from US-style car extremism. "Children cannot go out to play because their parents cannot afford to drive them" is a statement they would consider unthinkably psychotic. Can they not use public transit, or at worst, walk to where all the other neighborhood children are playing unorganized?

[surfpel]

> The study was conducted in Taiwan which does not suffer from US-style car extremism

This is true and a fair criticism of driving specifically. I noticed the location and do agree the 'driving' remark isn't as applicable to this specific study, but I still put forward the general sentiment regarding both a family's overall ability to support, where needed, and a childs ability to travel to travel if needed. Some kids won't need it, but in the cases where it is needed & they don't have it, it would lower the chances of keeping up with sports. Just one of many possible pathways that would make athletics hard to maintain.

But more generally to your point, while some sports won't require extra effort, it really does depend on the situation, which is why a study like this is so hard to carry out well. In my youth, it would have been more convenient to do lacrosse or soccer on-site, but those didn't work for with me so I picked different sports that had more of a demand for travel.

[slothtrop]

Intramurals are one option, often favored by immigrant parents who place more importance on academics, to exercise at school and by extension (usually) fairly close to home (see: volleyball, basketball, wrestling). Aside from some sports that require lots of travel around the city (like hockey, soccer) there are normally quite a few that tend to stay fixed, except for tournaments.

[noah91734]

You are missing the point entirely. Only in America is "exercise" something you must go out of your way to do. Walking (miles) is exercise. Playing is exercise. Our kids do neither of these things independently of household income because we've built our cities to make walking impossible and dangerous, and because we've now normalized locking our kids away indoors and shoving an iPad in their face because we convinced ourselves that they will get kidnapped or run over by a car if they are ever outside and unsupervised.

[slothtrop]

> Only in America is "exercise" something you must go out of your way to do.

No. Growing obesity rates is not an issue unique strictly to America, it's just prevalent there.

> we've built our cities to make walking impossible and dangerous

Kids can and do play in the suburbs. There are parks everywhere. They ride their bikes everywhere. The "fuckcars" angle fails to account for the disparity.

> normalized locking our kids away indoors and shoving an iPad in their face

Now you're getting warmer.

> You are missing the point entirely.

I addressed the argument conveyed to make your "point", and there isn't only a single "point" to be made in discourse. Notwithstanding that if you wanted to make another point, then you'd have made it.

[storf45]

Doesn't 'home life' depend on the parent's emphasis on physical activity, sports, or general fitness? I.e. if the parents put a higher value on other things, it seems likely that the children will follow their lead.

[noah91734]

A poor home life in any sense of the term should not matter unless it means the parents are outright abusive. I did not play outside as a kid because my parents emphasized it. I did it because there were kids right outside and playing with them was more fun than anything I could do inside. If one of my parents had to drive me anywhere for me to be physically active, I would very rarely have gone anywhere or done anything at all.

Parents chaperoning their kids every hour of every day _is not normal_ and never has been, except in the US.

[surfpel]

> A poor home life in any sense of the term should not matter unless it means the parents are outright abusive

I disagree. Stress from a dysfunctional family or timing demands from being required to act as a caretaker, among other things, will decrease the time and energy required to pursue physical activity.

And physical fitness, high enough to stimulate the indicators they measured, involves more than just causally playing outside - though my interpretation of that sets quite a low bar for the physical exertion involved.