Will discourage habit of using vehicles for short distances: Dr Bijal Shrivastava

Many schools are promoting walking to school to teach students about road safety and also to protect the environment. What are the benefits for children to walk from an early age and how will pollution affect them? Dr Bijal Shrivastava, consultant pediatrician, Dr LH Hiranandani Hospital speaks to DNA.

While walking is good for the environment and will help reduce pollution, how would it actually benefit students?
Walking is a very good form of physical activity and it is safe even for children. Physical activity in any form has positive effects on the body at that age and also prevents chronic illnesses such as obesity, high BP, diabetes and heart diseases in adulthood. Also, it would discourage them forming a habit of vehicular need for short distances.

Is it important to inculcate the habit of walking in children from a young age?
The habit of walking if started at an early age is going to continue in future. This is similar to how eating healthy and not junk food helps in avoiding lifestyle diseases later in life. So that the benefits of walking are not just restricted to young age, but also remains with them as they grow older.

As many children don’t exercise regularly, will this help them to be more active?
It’s common knowledge that children have become lazier as they are into computers, watching TV and video games. This is bad for them as along with becoming ‘couch potatoes’, they also end up eating lot of junk food. This habit of walking will at least try to give them a positive boost to start leading a more physically active life.

Will the high pollution levels in the city and major traffic congestion at some areas affect children’s health?
Children are highly prone to the adverse effects of high levels of pollution in the cities. This gets manifested in the form of repeated attacks of cold, cough, allergic rhinitis and asthmatic attacks in them. So these aspects too need to be taken into consideration.

Are there any precautions that you would suggest?
The basic precautions for the children would be to be accompanied by an elderly person and to learn road safety norms.