Our physical bodies aren’t build for virtual lives.
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I’ve been thinking a lot about my body lately due to a recent string of doctor, counselor, and physical therapist appointments I’ve had. For the past 10+ years, I’ve been trying to address a variety of chronic neck, shoulder, and back pain issues to little avail. As I’ve thought back through this journey, I’ve had a lot of questions.
Why did an athletic 14 year-old have to do physical therapy for hip pain?
Why did I have so much chest and back pain in 8th grade that I decided to quit all sports for 3 years?
Why do I still have significant chronic pain despite consistent exercise, multiple physical therapists, chiropractors, counselors, doctors, etc.?
Certainly, the wear and tear of playing sports had some role, and there is likely some underlying issue (like an unresolved injury or autoimmune issue) playing a part. But I believe one major component of this – and it’s something that has never been asked about by any medical professional I’ve seen, and something I believe is a huge risk for children today – is too much time on technology.
Chronic Pain for Kids
Kids (and adults!) are not meant to be sedentary. Growing bodies are meant to be playful and active, utilizing and strengthening muscles to support that growth. Yet our society is becoming more sedentary by the day. We’ve had long school days in desks for many decades now, which hasn’t been great, but the addition of technology and the reduction of exercise has amplified the challenges of not being active.
According to a 2023 meta-analysis of data on 57,000 children, “there is a positive correlation between daily computer time, daily mobile phone time, daily TV watching, and the risk of low back pain”, and “The risk of low back pain increased by 8.2% for each 1-hour of daily computer use”. Makes sense, right? Our bodies were not designed to be sedentary and stuck in unusual positions for hours on end.
We’ve even made up terms like “tech/text neck” for the poor posture and pain we experience from using our devices too much. It’s helpful for adults, but essential for kids, to stay active and keep from being on devices for too long.
Let’s Get Movin’!
Finding ways to get your kids to be more active is a great first step to keep kids from being too sedentary. There are lots of different ways this could look. Try to think about each main component of their days and nights and how you could help them be more active. Here are just a few ideas to spark your mind:
- Do your young kids have good recess time that they take advantage of at school?
- Are your middle or high schoolers signed up for at least one active class each trimester (PE, trade classes, etc.)?
- Are your kids less active in the summer? Can they sign up for summer sports, scouts, or church camps?
- Can you have an “active day” tradition where you carve out specific time each week to hike/bike/go to the park/walk/swim with family and friends?
- Is there sports equipment – like a basketball hoop or ping pong table – that you could get to allow for active time at the house?
Anything you do to add more physical activity into daily routines will help your kids flex and use those growing and changing muscles that aren’t built to stay still all day.
Exercise Alone Isn’t Enough
Making sure kids stay active is a great first step, but it needs to be done in conjunction with reducing screen time. 1 hour of exercise + 8 hours of sitting at a desk at school + 4 hours of screen time is not an ideal formula for physical health and pain prevention.
Screen time reduction should happen in having both less screen time overall and less consecutive screen time. Your teen plays video games for 2 hours every night? Try to bring it down to 1 hour total, with a mandatory movement break halfway through (walking the dog, playing basketball outside, stretching, etc.). Your kids watch TV shows every Saturday morning? Make them go outside and play after each episode. They might even forget about TV and just keep playing outside!
Of course, it is difficult to monitor and enforce things like this consistently, but it’s important to try to take some steps and set precedence and standards for how to use technology. Give it a shot! Anything you can do to reel in screen time a bit will be great for their brains and their bodies.
Wherever you’re at in your internet safety journey, there are always great things you can do to continue improving life for yourself and those around you. Check out my blog to learn more about a variety of internet safety topics, and feel free to reach out to me to talk more about the individual needs and questions you and your family have.
Until next time,
Casey
