Last week I pulled out my bicycle to ride to work. I live in a wonderful town for biking—wide streets, low traffic, half my route is off-road entirely, and it’s Ohio, so flat flat flat.

I had forgotten how much I loved bicycling: the wide looping turns, the wind on my face. . . . And I had forgotten how fast bikes are. With my short commute, I can make it in 5 minutes instead of a 20-minute walk. Faster than driving and parking and walking to my office. And more ecologically friendly than having my husband drop me off.

So why had I stopped riding? I’ve always owned a bike.

I know that I stopped riding when I lived in Ithaca, a city famous for mountainous hills and crowded cobbly streets. But it was more than that. The big change came when I “professionalized” my riding routine. As kids, we’d run out the door in whatever we were wearing—shorts, dresses, fancy slacks—jumped on the bike and were off.

In the late ’80s in Ithaca, riding had become a “sport.” The three-gear “racing” bikes we had ridden were replaced with 10- or 20-gear mountain bikes. People changed into “bike shorts” to ride, and biking shoes to fit into toe clips. And of course there were helmets.

I embraced all those changes, but it took riding from something you just did to an activity—something you prepared for by changing your clothes and then changing back when you hit your destination. It was a sport, not transportation.

My equipment got better. I stopped riding.

Historical Changes in Children’s Exercise

I was not the only one to walk or ride my bike to school. Everyone did.

1969: 40-42 percent of elementary school students walked or biked to school—for those living within a mile of school, 87-89 percent walked.
1995-2000: Those numbers dropped to 12 percent.
At present, only 10-11 percent of students walk. For those living within a mile of school, those numbers are down to 31-35 percent.

Biking to school has dropped most precipitously, moving from 6-8 percent in the late ’60s to 1-2 percent of K-8th grade students. School consolidation has played a major role in this shift, with many more students traveling long distances to large schools, but school drop-offs by parents have been equally important (U.S. Department of Transportation).

Loss of Recess

Although I loved school, I also loved recess. Sometimes we ran around like lunatics—jumping rope or playing tag in all its varieties. We played organized games like dodgeball or duck-duck-goose and kickball and softball. Often, we’d walk around talking or building little toy villages out of stones. Kid stuff.

We had time to do that. Standard elementary school recess times included 45-90 minutes of free time per day, including a morning, lunch, and afternoon recess.

In 2007, the No Child Left Behind Act upped the stakes of standardized testing, replacing recess with core instruction in reading and math. The Center on Education Policy found that 20 percent of schools had cut recess by 50 minutes a week, with many urban schools eliminating it entirely.

Today, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that elementary school students have only 26.9 minutes of recess per day. For us, that was just our lunch recess—and you could get more if you ate fast. We had two others to blow off steam between lessons. Today, the poorer and more urban you are, the less likely you are to have recess.

Playing at Home

I know that when I was a kid, we were out all the time, with piles of bikes in yards and a constant game of kickball or tag going on somewhere within sight. But the actual data is even worse than my memory.

In the 1970s, elementary school children averaged 3-4 hours of unstructured outdoor play on nonschool days. Three to four hours. On average now, it’s less than an hour. In the 1970s-1980s, 75 percent rode a bicycle regularly—at least 25-50 times a year. A large portion now fall in the “infrequent” category, with regular riding falling to 35-37 percent.

Part of that is that children are more heavily supervised—kids are in sports leagues rather than wandering loose or playing in their yard. However, the University of Michigan estimates that between 1981 and 1997, free play time (indoor and out) declined about 12 hours a week.

As children have moved from free or low-cost community sports organizations to highly organized, competitive pay-to-play models, this loss has been most heavily felt among lower-income youth.

What to Do

My social media feed—like everyone else’s—touts the benefits of exercise as we scroll through our phones. Pictures of slim, well-muscled people playing pickleball, or doing aerobics, yoga, or running flood my screen. All of them are dressed for the role in cute outfits made to purpose: body-hugging clothes, matching headbands, and expensive sneakers.

This is where I started my thinking on the topic. When I was a kid, I got on my bike and rode. I walked out the door in whatever I was wearing and headed out to find something to do.

Looking at the activity tracker on my watch, however, I know that kind of unstructured activity is still where my exercise comes from. It comes from running up and down the stairs at work (12 times a day), biking to school (and home again for lunch), and pacing in front of class while I lecture. Just like I did as a kid. In other words, I don’t “exercise.” I do stuff. Wearing my regular clothes. On a completely unplanned but regular schedule.

What happens if we help kids learn to do that? We walk them to the playground? We park a little further away from the store when we take them shopping? We shop at places with lots of long aisles and take them with us?

Perhaps we lobby our PTA to restore recess? There is evidence that recess is great for school performance:

Reduces cognitive fatigue: Because thinking is hard work, physical activity improves executive functioning like impulse control, working memory, and sustained focus.
Attention recovery: Spacing out learning—like breaking for recess—helps children retain information better and restores focus.
On-task behavior: Children are much less fidgety after a recess break, again improving learning.

The American Academy of Pediatrics writes in an official policy statement:

“Recess is a necessary component of a child’s development.”

Maybe we should take it seriously as something to do. But less seriously as something we need to dress up for, buy things for, and plan.