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Children are less resilient than their parents
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
Improper nutrition, sedentary lifestyle - these are the main causes of diseases of a modern child. Most children today are not adapted to lead an active lifestyle, are sicker, get tired faster. The National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine reports that over the past decade the percentage of schoolchildren's diseases has increased 27 times. Only 7% of modern school-age children have satisfactory health.
Long-term studies were conducted in South Australia to study children's endurance during physical activity, namely running. The experiment lasted from 1964 to 2010, and more than 25 million children from 28 countries, aged 9 to 17, took part in it. Scientists primarily paid attention to the state of the child's cardiovascular system after a 15-minute run, how long it took the children to run a distance of 800 - 3200 meters. It turned out that over the past four decades, children have become much less enduring. Every decade, a 5% decrease in endurance is observed. A child now runs a distance of 1.5 km on average one and a half times slower than a child of the same age 30 years ago. However, a decrease in endurance is not observed in all countries. Australia, North America, New Zealand are countries where children have become less resilient, but in China, on the contrary, children are becoming stronger with each generation, in Japan, resilience has not changed significantly, remaining at approximately the same level.
Scientists associate decreased endurance with childhood obesity, which is associated with a sedentary lifestyle, insufficient physical activity, and unhealthy eating habits (fast foods, fatty foods, etc.). Experts are confident that every child should do at least an hour of physical exercise a day (running, swimming, cycling, etc.).
The health condition of Ukrainian schoolchildren is at a catastrophic level. 11% of first-graders have problems with the musculoskeletal system, 25% - with the nasopharynx, 30% - with the nervous system and digestive tract, 25% have various allergic reactions. Over the years of study, schoolchildren's visual acuity decreases by 1.5 times, there is a violation of posture, diseases of the endocrine and digestive systems appear. But only 5% of children belong to a special medical group. The Institute of Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology reports more serious data: only about 10% of teenagers aged 12 to 18 are relatively healthy, in 65% of girls and 50% of boys, the adaptation of the body to stress is below average or very low.
67 years is the average life expectancy in Ukraine, while in Iceland and Switzerland the same figure is above 80 years. The healthy life expectancy of a Ukrainian is 55 years, while for Icelanders, Swiss, and Swedes it is above 70 years. International organizations assume that if Ukrainian policy remains at the same level, then by 2025 the number of Ukrainians will decrease to 37 million people, and according to UN estimates, by the middle of the 21st century there will be approximately 26 million people left in Ukraine.
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