Skinny Youth...

[SirRustbucket]

Sometimes you can't help but pause to reflect.

We've got a work experience lad for the week and - good lord! - he's skinny. Not just skinny but borderline emaciated! A walking skeleton comes to mind.

He struggles to do very basic things like lift a binbag full of rubbish or help customers carry their goods to the car. Sweeping the floor for a few minutes tires him out so that he has to sit down for a little while.

Unless he has some underlying condition his mum hasn't told us about, how can one go through life (he must be 14-15ish) and end up in such a state?

The mind boggles.

[lucy the tudor]

Sometimes it's the "healthy" low fat diet their parents feed them.
Our lad has a friend who is allowed one bar of chocolate a week, a couple of bisuits at a time, and they don't even keep lots of interesting fruit about the place- apples and pears mainly.
Heck I'd get thin on that regime!
The two boys in that family are rake thin, to the point their dad joked with me yesterday that he expects a visit from social services after they go swimming, as they look so skinny in their costumes. I "agreed" with him that it was hard to keep weight on our boy too, no matter how much he eats he stays slim from all the exercise he does. I slipped in that he eats full meals, fruit and veg, and then eats about three packets of biscuits a week, flapjacks, cakes and several chocolate bars a day... he's eleven, if he eats healthy stuff first, and is a good weight, if he's hungry, he can eat what he wants.
It also works that when he's not exercising and not in a growth spurt, he isn't hungry, and so doesn't eat so much.
If we stopped hassling kids in schools about weight, AND stopped the pressure to clear their plate ( when they haven't had a say in what/how mcuh goes on that plate) then we'd find we learned to listen to our bodies when we are younger, and not use food as a reward/comfort/boredom relief, like a lot of us older people do.


Ah, seem to have struck a nerve there, sorry.

[SirRustbucket]

Hmm, I don't think this is just about food. He literally hasn't got a fibre of muscle about him. I don't think he ever gets out. Not even to, I don't know...say, walk the dog or go to the shops. Nevermind sport or healthy exercise.
He likes talking about his computer games though and while I love my pasttimes as much as the next bloke... (or lass, seeing as gamer chicks are the new sexy ) ...I dare say I can point the finger of blame squarely on the problem here!

I wonder if I should raise the issue with his parents? Perhaps it's not for me to say but he's ask me for a real job...I wouldn't take him.

[Senilis Pravus]

Surely physical activity such as he is experiencing with you is just what he needs.
You'd be doing him a favour to take him on (but maybe not yourself one).

Give him a trial period - he may improve.

[ForTheMarshal]

Surely physical activity such as he is experiencing with you is just what he needs.
You'd be doing him a favour to take him on (but maybe not yourself one).

Give him a trial period - he may improve.

This.

My 8 year old is like to blow over in a strong wind, but his stamina at outdoors things is still higher than most.
We feed the b**ger, he just doesn't fill out any

[Simon Atford]

What does he eat for lunch? Perhaps you should try feeding him up?

[lucy the tudor]

We feed ours up, and up is where he keeps growing.

[The Iron Dwarf]

im not growing up!
not got any taller for years and my waist is getting smaller but im not losing weight so I must be getting denser, maybe I will one day turn into a black hole

[Brian la Zouche]

8 years ago i was ripped. ok i spent 17 years teaching wing chun, worked doors trained 7 days a week, pulled weights/ cardio/ vas trained 3 /4 days a week, didnt smoke, and totally healthy diet, i had never been so fit, however the ammount of people who asked if i was ill was amazing, it seems although i was mega fit, i looked really ill.. after back injury. women troubles, ( old age creeping on ) etc etc, i still eat mega healthy, yet put on weight, and struggle to shift the slightest bit each month, yet people no longer say i look ill . hows that work ?

comp games should be banned untill you are old enough not to want to play them,
chip shops biggest soda sellers are DIET coke,, wtf !!

i'd say give him a go, keep him active, even light fast jobs will get his motabalisum fired up, but if you are running a biz then i understand. maybe you could offer him a saturday job, just sweeping up or such, anything to get him more active

however its rare to see skinny people now a days, seems we are catching up with the states as far as fattys go ( sorry i aint pc )

[Biro]

Had a couple turn up a while back wanting to train with us and join up just for the combat.

We tried training them for a few weeks - we really did, but it was pretty apparant that they simply could not control any of the weapons. They were simply too weak to be safe. In the end we had to tell them to go to the gym and build themselves up a bit before coming back.

Needless to say we never saw them again... I don't know. Too weak to work, too weak to have fun.. Hell, I get no excercise outside of re-enactment and sit at a desk 5 days a week, and in my 40s now, but still, I manage it. Sure I get tired a damn sight quicker than when I was 20 - but at least I can swing a sword...

Must take some serious effort to get that weak...

But then I suppose I grew up before computers and cable tv and spent all my time running around outside, climbing on garage roofs etc. and did martial arts for a couple of years too. They must still have to do PE at school though, surely?

[Simon Atford]

But then I suppose I grew up before computers and cable tv and spent all my time running around outside, climbing on garage roofs etc. and did martial arts for a couple of years too. They must still have to do PE at school though, surely?

Probbally limited time for PE these days because of pressure from other areas of the curriculum.

[guthrie]

I was under the impression they'd been selling off school playing fields for the last 20 years, so there are fewer opportunities even for a kick around.
And of course computer games occupy a lot of time.

According to an article in the Telegraph, British children are the most stressed, unhappy and sedentary in the world:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9357146/British-children-unhappiest-in-the-world-say-academics.html

Frankly a lot of the complaints about them sound like exactly the same things people complained about when I was young, a mere 20 or so years ago, but I can believe the unhappy and sedentary bits despite that.

[Biro]

Probbally limited time for PE these days because of pressure from other areas of the curriculum.

I don't know. I can only speak for my own teenager's school, but he does PE twice a week (same as I did) - but it's also mandatory for him next year too(after his options) - whereas I remember it was optional for me (and I dropped it). They're also encouraging him a lot to do loads of extra after-school sports -as if it's expected, so he spends 1-2 days a week after school doing rugby in the winter and athletics in the summer.

If anything there definately seems to be more focus on PE than I remember as a kid. (or maybe he's just better at it than I was!)

I wonder if the just go easier on the kids that are less sporty than they used to? (The cross country run through sleet didn't seem quite so bad when the PE teacher was an ex-rugby player slapping his palm with a cane!)

[Dave B]

Yep, my daughter does regular PE, there are loads of after school sports activities too if they want them, and playtime seems to consist of lots of running about on the sportsfield (if the state of her shoes is anything to go by). But then she's an active kind of kid, not especially fond of ball sports but loves running, swimming, bike riding, rough-housing.

Even in my day there were just some kids that don't like to run about. There were given PE lessons, but they would just amble dejectedly round the football pitch unless they could get a sicknote. I think some kids are just like that.

[SirRustbucket]

Well, it's been nearly a week now and out work experience lad is having a grand old time. I'd actually like to see him stay on, he seems bright enough and he seems to be having fun, which is always a good start (much better than the oiks we get from the Job Centre who clearly are just going through the motions...). Shame that it's not my call - I don't run the business, I just supervise. And apparently there's no money in the budget for a worker who wants to get paid (naturally... ).

It'll be his last day tomorrow, so got to chat a little. Turns out he really has spent his entire life in front of a computer so far and he hasn't got a clue what he wants to do with his life.

Hmm....

Well, I suppose that's okay. Many folks don't find out what they like doing until much later. What still bothers me is that he's not really going to find out if he keeps up with his current lifestyle. His mum isn't really helping either, phoning him three times a day to make sure we're not working him too hard. *sighs*.

I'm half tempted to introduce him to the wonderful world of re-enactment but I don't think it'd be entirely fair. Being a bit wheezy and also still too you we can't really let him train, much less play, and having no money he couldn't afford the kit. Shame. Surely there's a lad who needs to be dragged out of his shell if ever I saw one.

[Dave B]

I'm half tempted to introduce him to the wonderful world of re-enactment but I don't think it'd be entirely fair. Being a bit wheezy and also still too you we can't really let him train, much less play, and having no money he couldn't afford the kit. Shame. Surely there's a lad who needs to be dragged out of his shell if ever I saw one.

I dunno. If you can find him hose and a shirt he can always help put armour on people, tend the fire etc. To be honest there is a lack in reenactment of people doing the 'lowest status' stuff. Much as I love a bash, the best bit of reenactment is hanging out in a field.

[Lady Jane Rochester]

in the long distant past, every one of us has been thought of that skinny/podgy/short/lanky/spotty/shy/gobby youth, and at some point someone face palmed at our sheer unlikeliness to survive the big, bad world. Eventually we all seem to get on with life and do as well as we can.

[The Iron Dwarf]

some of us are still short

[cloudy-cola-corp]

you could get him to come to events as a young monk then he doesn't have to fight and a helping out with a few menial jobs in exchange for a nice time in the fresh air and something new to learn and will help build his strength prehaps he could even learn to illuminate and do some of that so he can be sat mostly?

[Colin Middleton]

some of us are still short

You're not short, you're just a different kind of tall...