Girth from Birth

Indiana State University is not the institute of higher education that you’ve heard of before. It’s not the one where Bobby Knight coached and threw chairs like they were paper airplanes. It’s not the Catholic school that has every one of their football games televised on NBC. Heck, it’s even less well-known that Hickory High, which while inspiring millions in the flick Hoosiers. No, Indiana State University is in the unpronounceable town of Terre Haute, and until this point, you didn’t know they existed.

However, researchers at ISU are looking to change that and the way your kids exercise.

For kids too young to get the workout in during post-snack recess, it is the responsibility of the parents to make sure there kids start off their lives healthy and in shape. The marketing world has given you plenty of methods – swings and bouncers, Big Wheels and Little Gyms, and yes, even baby aerobics. But why should you trust any of these methods? They require a large outlay of money and floorspace. Yes, the ISU researchers want you to feel this way and, therefore, take their suggestion.

Make the toys heavier.

CNN is reporting that health advocates at ISU (they’re the Sycamores, by the way) are pointing out that American children are approaching obesity quicker than in past generations. Exercise must be a larger priority. But with limited resources, they suggesting that if weight is added to the toys, children can burn more calories and prove once and for all that you can mix work(out) and play.

Naturally, YAB is skeptical. The article particularly mentions adding weight to both toy blocks and teddy bears. Let’s review the ramifications, shall we?

Toy blocks – I remember playing with toy blocks. Personally, I preferred Legos, but you can’t be picky 1) when you’re 3 and 2) when there are other kids who the teacher insists you “share” with. This prevented, of course, building any sort of model structure that contained a roof. There’s nothing on a toy block that you can use to affix the roof to the walls, no matter how much they weighed. Hence, one of my greatest regrets was being unable to construct a model Astrodome when I was 4. Ok, off-topic.

One use of the toy block, as demonstrated above, is building. That really wouldn’t change if the blocks were made to be weighted. These are going to be dumbbell-size, they’re still blocks, and kids will be able to lift them. (It’s a general rule of childhood, that if something is heavy, Mommy and Daddy probably don’t want you to have it – glass vases, end tables, their car) But weighting the blocks will (aside from those silly Sycamore health predictions) also make your toy buildings more structurally sound and stand up much better to the elements. (No longer will spilled milk find a way to wash away the foundation of your Boys-only fort.)

Now critics of the weighted blocks say that kids will be at more injurious risk, as children are prone to pick up said blocks and work on their fastball – normally at other kids. But here’s a tip – weighted or not, the blocks are going to hurt if you take a little chin music from a classmate. You’re still going to cry, and it’ll still leave a mark. It’s not like unweighted blocks feel like marshmallows. Regardless of weight, the blocks are gonna fly. Might as well working on that throwing arm with some resistance training.

By the way, a marshmallow Astrodome just might’ve worked.

Teddy Bears – I’m against the idea on principle. If we wanted Teddy Bears to be heavier, we would’ve named them after Teddy Roosevelt’s successor, William Howard Taft.