by Barry Hugill
I put it down to their awful American diet. Call me an old fogey but man was not put on this earth to stuff himself with burgers, crisps and Coke. Chemically enriched food is not doing them much good but, apparently, is not the sole reason for their wretched condition. Thank you, the Policy Studies Institute, for explaining all: children today are reared like 'battery hens'.
The institute is the thinktank set up a few years ago to show it is not just the loony Right that has all the good ideas. Last week it produced one of the most depressing reports in years.
Battery hens are reared in horrendous conditions, cooped up all hours. If you put a free range hen alongside a battery specimen it is obvious which is which. The free rangers look healthy, the others do not. The institute claims today's children are cooped up because parents are terrified to let them out. Those of us over 30 were reared in a free range environment - walking to school, playing in streets and fields, spending a lot of time in the open air.
Now perverts and cars have made out of doors out of bounds. Parents are spending more and more time chauffeuring able bodied children because of fears for their safety. 'Children's development into healthy and mature adults is being stunted,' claims the institute.
In 1971, 80% of seven and eight year olds went to school on their own, but now only 9% are allowed to do so; more than 80% of schoolchildren own a bicycle, but only 2% cycle to school.
Does this matter ? The medics say it does. Apparently a great majority of children are not as fit as they ought to be and will be more susceptible to serious illness in later years.
Not only physical well being is at risk; children's social and emotional development is being retarded. they are under 24 hours a day adult supervision, resulting (excuse the jargon) in an inability to 'develop coping skills, and the capacity to take responsibility, and to use their minds creatively'.
This is tough on the kids and pretty awful for parents. There is evidence that a lot of mothers would like to work full time but cannot because they have to escort youngsters to and from school. On top of which it clutters up the roads. Escorting children to school costs between 10 and 20 billion (UK sterling) a year in road maintenance, time lost in jams, extra pollution. That is a Department of Transport figure so it is probably a conservative estimate.
One of the few things we are good at is road safety. Brilliant, in fact, every primary school pupil knows the green cross oode. This according to the institute is a problem. That sounds daft, until you think about it.
This is what the report says: 'The number of injuries is not a proper indicator of the danger on the roads. It is the perceived danger which accounts fro parents increasingly imposing restrictions on their children. Many roads in residential areas have good accident records because they are so dangerous that children are forbidden to cross them.'
'The conventional approach to the growing danger from traffic is to withdraw children from the threat is poses - rather than withdraw the threat from the children. Road safety education for children seeks to inculcate fear and attitudes of deference to traffic. The outcome constitutes a great injustice to children.'
It need not be like this. In the Netherlands 61% of boys ages between 12 and 14 and 60% of girls travel most places by bike. In Britain the figures are 13 and 4 %.
The solution is war on cars. We could start with a ban in some streets. Designate them 'playstreets', says the institute and stand up to the road lobby. Of course there would be howls of protest - nanny state, restriction on liberty, the usual stuff. Having cleared some streets, the next stages would be zoning policies to reduce traffic near schools and then the creation of cycle routes and special zones where children walking are given priority over motorists.
If we wanted to be radical we could have road pricing, surcharges on large petrol guzzling saloons that seat five in comfort but never carry a passenger and a tax blitz on the company car. I would reward people who walk to work with a tax reduction - x pence per mile with a bonus rebate for the over fifties. Those who use public transport could get a slightly smaller rebate.
Utopiah ? I guess so. The institute's report was the most depressing read of last week but not far behind was page two of the Observer: 'A blueprint for Autogeddon'. the Transport Department is not keen on playstreets. It prefers 12 lane motorways, god help us.