"HE staggers out of bed some time around the crack of noon, eats Coco Pops until about one and then watches videos and athletics until about five. He's out then for the night and gets in at, I suppose, three or four in the morning. He does it all again the next day ... It drives me mad, and it can't be good for him."
Seventeen year old Evan looks healthy and seems happy. Despite the strain his lack of activity seems to be putting on relations with his mother, Mary, while she waits for school to start up in September, he has no inclination to move his attention away from athletics TV coverage to athletic endeavour.
"I did used to play rugby in school but wasn't good enough for the team so I dropped out. I didn't like it anyway," asserts Evan.
A study reported recently in The Lancet medical journal concludes that among adolescents, ... emotional well being is positively associated with the extent of participation in sport ..." and it emphasises the need to promote physical activity among this age group.
Michael O'Grady, national chairman of the Community Games Association, says there is no coherent strategy in Ireland to do this.
"There should be a full Minister of Sport as a basic step," he says. At present Bernard Allen is Minister of State for Sport at the Department of Education.
Further, Mr O'Grady criticises the education system here, which he says, "loses us tremendous sporting talent to the `points race'".
Most have to give it up coming up to exams, to study, and they don't pick it back up again."
Also a headmaster in Ballinasloe, Mr O'Grady says the improvement in self esteem he sees sport giving to teenagers, especially the girls, is tremendous. "Boys and girls come to my school and the lads would be laughing at the idea of girls playing soccer. It's soon knocked out of them on the pitch. It gives them respect for each other's efforts and they bring that respect beyond the playing field.
"Taking part in a sport not only gives them outside interest and a sense of team work but they get a great sense of mental discipline and of pushing oneself to achieve one's own goals.
"They [his students] learn to be good losers and, more importantly, good winners - to win gracefully," he adds.
SUSANA Caulfield, an 11 year old camogie player from Knocklyon in Dublin, says that sport "freshens your mind ... You get a break from study and you can concentrate better.
"I used to play soccer with boys and you get great praise," adds Ciara Lucey, also 11.
Ann McCormack, 13, who lives in Firhouse, Dublin, sees some people in her age group who have not been interested in sport, and with nothing else to do, getting into trouble during the holidays: ". . . drinking and smoking and hanging around . . . shoplifting out of boredom".
Earlier this year, a study by the Department of Health, A National Survey Of Involvement in Sport and Physical Activity, found that 16 to 18 year olds were the most active members of, the population. A perhaps unbelievable 95 per cent of the 16 to 18 year olds, in the study of 2,000 interviews with people of all ages, classed themselves as "active".
However, a closer look at the study reveals that young people would have had to have been virtually inert not to be classed as "active", because included in the study's, definition of active sports were pitch and putt, snooker, angling and gardening. Walking, cycling and motor cycling - essential modes of transport for this age group - were also among the 57 sports included.
Whatever their form of activity more than half of 16 to 18 year olds drift away from sport once they leave school, the survey found. PE is compulsory at primary level but secondary schools in the State are merely "recommended" to include games in their curriculum.
A sizeable number of teenagers drop games in the senior cycle of secondary school. Mr O'Grady cites exam pressure as a primary cause of this.
But nearly one in 10 (9 per cent) of the overall study felt that PE and games in school adversely, influenced their long term enjoyment of sport.
Ciara says that in her school, enjoyment of PE depends very much on the teacher a class has for the year. Generally, there are not specialised PE teachers at primary level.
"Last year our teacher just made us do exercises on the spot all year. It was really boring. This year we play games more.
As the Department study says: "By the age of 10, attitudes and personality are largely formed and if the education system does not include sport and Physical Education, then a vital opportunity has been missed."
Susana wishes there was more time given to games at school: "There's only an hour a week."
"Tremendous talent is beings lost," says Mr O'Grady. "Sports' should be made a Leaving Cert subject. Students should be able to get points for sport ... they could be taught about the history of sport, the biology of muscles ... Art and music are Leaving Cert subjects. Why not sport?"
Aileen Milan, a community sports organiser in Co Dublin feels that there is another extreme, where there is often too much pressure on teenagers to excel.
"The fun is gone out of it, and parents are the worst offenders. You see them with their stop watches at the side of the pool shouting at their kids to swim faster and faster and telling them they're not doing good enough ... Partaking is what it should be about ... I've seen kids who train and train and train so hard that by 16 they're burnt out."
Mr O'Grady says there is little or no policy on general sport for all in Ireland. Such funding as there is goes into the "elite of sports" - into grants etc. for the very best of our athletes. A strategy to foster, or even facilitate, a love of, sport among the general population is lacking at government level, he says.
SUCH facilities as there are in any area tend to be for particular sports and if a child's preferred sport is not catered for in his or her locality, their talent often is not nurtured.
The Department's report found a majority of respondents (66 per cent) believe that provision of facilities and, government support for sport is inadequate. In particular respondents feel there are not enough public swimming pools.
"I used to like PE in primary school all right," reflects Evan. In his secondary school however, it's all about rugby and the Cup tournaments ... and I hate all that rugger crowd scene. In winter you can't do any other sport in our school. So I don't," he explains simply.
