Health First, Sport Second
Why fitness literacy should come before, through, and after chasing athletic success.
“People go about the whole thing backwards.
They sell out on ‘making it in sport’ & if it doesn’t work out, ‘we’ll figure that health & fitness thing out later, maybe.’
It should be:
Teach Health & Fitness now & if sport works out on top of it, that’s purely bonus.”
-Ray Zingler on X
It starts out as “sports are good ways to keep kids active!”
And then adults claim it’s about “finding their passion!” and “love of the game!”
And yeah, now, Private Equity owns your kids sports organizations.
“No they don’t!”
You’re sorta right…
It’s even deeper.
They own who own your kids organizations.
That’s why you pay $10 or more to park your rig at youth ball games you can’t even bring your own bottled water into.
But yeah, sure, yeah, love of the game, life lessons or whatever, go team!!
“I just can’t figure out why my kids passion ran out!”
Really?
You can’t figure it out?
You mean chasing the A-team and (paid) political rankings from some guy whose incentivized to gas your kid up didn’t boost your kids confidence?
Applying heaping volumes of unnecessary pressure to child’s games didn’t do it for him?
You don’t have any clue why he has little interest in continuing playing at Bumblefuck Tech while grown adults 7 years his senior are still competing in intercollegiate athletics?
Gosh, me either!
Not only are youth sports completely ass backwards in nature and sadly trending further away from north, but parents are also going the wrong way from the jump.
While most parents after seeing their kid become a “phenom”, winning at all costs, and premature advancement, they pay no mind to the cost.
“Sports are a good way to keep kids active” isn’t why or how MOST are playing the game.
They are playing it not for the “love” of sport, but for what they think comes WITH sport (clout, recognition, “scholarships”, NIL, etc.)
And as we condition to kids to chase these shiny red balls, you know what they’re NOT doing?
Developing a positive relationship with the concept of health, movement, & fitness, which are vastly more important than sport.
We live in a world, where we put ball bats in kids’ hands at 5 years old.
And that’s fine or whatever, but what isn’t is having 15-year-olds who can’t skip and believe food comes from drive-thru windows.
Put Health & Fitness first, and if sport works out on top (ironically H&F hold the keys to their sport potential), that’s merely a bonus.