Teens lack guidance on after-school exercise

The lack of extracurricular exercise guidance has emerged as a major concern in the effort to improve teenagers' physical fitness, experts said.

According to the national fitness survey released on Wednesday, 93 percent of Chinese ages 6 to 19 exercise regularly after school, but 78.1 percent of them do so without adequate athletic guidance and safety protections.

The underdevelopment of social sports clubs available for students has led to Chinese teenagers' on-their-own exercise approach after school, which can result in unscientific workouts and sports injuries, said Wang Mei, deputy director of the national mass sports research center.

"Most of the exercise facilities and instructions offered in the mass fitness campaign in our country are for senior citizens. Sports guidance for teenagers heavily relies on school systems, but children actually need equal exercise support after school," Wang said.

The youth department of the State Administration of Sport said that 4,000 youth sports clubs currently operate outside the country's education system - far from enough to address students' extracurricular exercise needs.

"We have made plans to strengthen ties with local communities and commercial clubs to provide more hardware support and trainer guidance for teenagers out of school," said Guo Jianjun, director of the youth department.

(China Daily 08/07/2014 page4)