‘In my day, we threw an actual football …’

Some final thoughts on the issues of childhood obesity, our insistence that kids be supervised at all times, and getting our kids outside -- from me and from readers:

Plenty of you take issue with the theory I've explored in my July columns: the idea that today's parenting culture, which strictly prohibits children from playing outside unsupervised, has more to do with kids getting fat than anything else.

Russ Gollin of Las Vegas writes: "I see one outstanding factor of the obesity crisis being the influence of electronic games our children are so fascinated with.

"In my day, we threw an actual football to each other, we did not sit in the living room and watch John Madden's newest cartridge do it for us. Tennis, baseball and bicycling were done with actual equipment, not a Wii Fit paddle on a cord.

"Today's parents will never see the need to make time from their busy schedule to play these sports with their kids when the game store sells or rents a cartridge that will do it for them. This electronic baby-sitting will unfortunately be passed on to the next generation of unmotivated youth, as kids learn parental interaction from their own Mom and Dad.

"I see this in my restaurant every day as well. The family sits around the table, and junior, or his sister, are missing from all verbal discussion because they're glued to a hand-held device."

Local teacher Judy Kay Frome agrees. "My theory is that kids spend so much time indoors because of video games. Their thumbs aren't overweight -- they get a workout all the time," she writes. "And as they sit there, engrossed in this activity, it is easy to snack.

"Personally, I think video games are one of the worst inventions of all time. My students who play games constantly are bored with activities like reading and writing. They don't have imagination -- every story they write is simply a re-hash of a game. There isn't a plot, there is just a bad guy who gets beat down by a new, badder, guy.

"Parents should restrict the use of games to a small period of time each day and insist that their kids get up and move around or go play at something that requires imagination.

"Have you ever noticed that skaters are never fat? They're constantly working out -- good for them!"

Have you ever noticed anything else about skaters? You don't see a parent hovering (or skating, for that matter) behind them as they wheel around our streets. They have the freedom to exercise.

I agree that video games -- like almost anything else -- aren't healthy without moderation. But I don't think it's a coincidence that the video game industry has exploded at the same time our parenting norms have increasingly discouraged unsupervised, outdoor play. I think you see so many kids playing video games for excessive periods because their parents won't let them outside.

I grew up in the golden age of the Atari 2600 and, wonder of wonders, Intellivision. Any kid who had those game systems back then quickly had company. Sometimes, we'd play for hours. But we also had the ability to drop everything and head outside -- on our own.

Video games, by themselves, aren't making kids fat.

Many readers also blamed poor-quality school lunches and fast-food restaurants for making children obese. But school lunches weren't exactly Wolfgang Puck fare in my day, either. And they're not portioned like meals at Claim Jumper.

"While I agree that junk food seems to be everywhere, this is neither a new phenomenon nor an excuse for ballooning waistlines," writes Bruce Borgos of Las Vegas. "Forty years ago, my elementary school days were like a Turkish bazaar, my friends and I trading the fruit and vegetables that had snuck into our sack lunches for Ding-Dongs and Twinkies. Sugar and fat have always been staples in our land. But, like you, I spent the majority of my youth outside, somehow burning these pollutants from my body without the benefit of structured, adult-monitored play."

As far as fast food goes, anyone remember the McDonald's 1984 Olympics promotion, "When the U.S. wins, you win"? McDonald's handed out scratch cards that awarded free food if the U.S. won a medal in a particular event. Because of the communist boycotts, America won darn near everything, allowing my friends and I to eat two meals there daily, for free, for the better part of two months.

But we walked or biked a mile each way to get the grub.

There's nothing wrong with school lunches or fast food. Getting fat is all about calories in exceeding calories out. If you feed a kid nothing but Whole Foods groceries but never let him play, he's going to get fat.

J. Justin Wilson of the Center for Consumer Freedom reports: "Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) found last year that 'living near a fast-food outlet had little effect on weight.' Instead, IUPUI found that living near recreational areas -- like fitness centers, kickball diamonds and volleyball nets -- affects the body mass of children. Living near one of those play areas correlated to a 3- to 6-pound loss in an 8-year-old boy."

Kathleen Miller of Las Vegas has a suggestion to help get kids outside, unsupervised: "Block parties to meet the neighbors, so parents would feel more comfortable with letting the kids play outside and ride their bikes. And turn off the TV, where all the experts are telling us how much we need government to run our lives.

"The mixed messages are amazing," Kathleen adds. "While being told our children are obese on a regular basis, I also receive e-mails almost every day (I run a nonprofit) asking me to join in to feed the 146,000 children in the Clark County school system who receive free or reduced price lunches during the school year, but 'may' go hungry during the summer!

"Which is it, are they little fatties, or are they starving?"

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A few resources parents might be interested in:

-- KaBOOM! (kaboom.org) is a national nonprofit dedicated to saving play in the lives of America's children.

-- Lenore Skenazy is the author of "Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry)," and she blogs at www.freerangekids.com, where she tracks issues related to irrational parenting fears, the nanny state and the social ramifications of being overprotective of kids, among other topics

-- Alison Steele of Houston recommends Richard Louv's best-selling "Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Kids from Nature Deficit Disorder."

Glenn Cook (gcook@reviewjournal.com) is a Review-Journal editorial writer.