Why Do Children Skip?

UK Doctor Dimple Devadas investigates...

I cannot recall the last time I skipped. As a Paediatric doctor though, I am surrounded by skippers. Indeed, ward rounds are conducted with extreme caution in the event of being knocked over by one. These near-miss collisions got me thinking, and many questions sprung to mind. Having acquired the skill of skipping at the age of five, why do children continue to skip throughout childhood only to dismiss this form of travel in adulthood? Why don’t adults skip? If adults don’t skip, how do children learn to skip non sequitur!

Skipping – a bipedal locomotive peculiarity?  “Children just seem to have the natural ability to skip,” comments Menna Bynon, a London primary school teacher. From mere playground observation, it is associated with play and incorporated into many games with or without a rope. “I haven’t come across any skipping teaching in the playground, but they do spend vast quantities of playtime engaged in the activity.”

Anne Roebuck, Director of Physiotherapy London and a physiotherapist with an interest in gait analysis, feels that due to the increased upward motion associated with the skipping gait, it is an inefficient gait likely to require higher levels of energy expenditure. "Perhaps, therefore, children use this to expend their excess energy?"

In fact, Minetti in his paper The biomechanics of skipping gaits: A third Locomotion paradigm found that more energy was indeed expended during skipping. His experiments revealed that energy expenditure for skipping gaits were much higher than running at similar speeds. 

So do children use it to dissipate excess energy?

Dr Sukanta Banerjee, a child developmental expert feels this is a possible explanation but notes from her experience that children with hyperactivity do not appear to skip. This could be due to the fact that skipping does require a certain amount of concentration that these children may lack.

Skipping also seems to require higher developmental motor conditioning and in fact due to the amount of rhythm & co-ordination required for skipping it may even improve spatio-temporal (reasoning centers) parts of the brain. Interestingly my observation is that children with learning difficulties, don’t skip. 

It’s also a gait linked to happiness however and I haven’t come across any unhappy skippers”.

Retrospective data collected from 664 undergraduate students showed that the most common explanation for skipping was in fact related to affect. “Skipping in a euthymic state might not elevate mood, but one skips because one is happy”, comments Dr James Barrett, a leading Psychiatrist.

Dr Mandy Bryon, a leading paediatric clinical psychologist, feels that there seems to be a sex variation with preponderance in girls. Boys find it more difficult to learn to skip (without a rope) than girls. “This might account for the reduced number of boys that skip compared to girls, though there will also be a social element,” adds Mandy.

We’ve asked the experts now how about a straw poll? I turn my attention to my little skippers! Callum aged 5 felt that he liked skipping as it made him happy and he could get to places without getting out of breath. Michael age 7 commented that skipping was good as they weren’t allowed to run to the tuck shop at school. Maria, aged 6 said she played lots of skipping games during playtime with her friends.

Skipping is hence a bipedal locomotive peculiarity. It is a means of dodging tuck shop queues, a favorable & enjoyable mode of transport as well as a socializing activity plus there are many health benefits.

 It’s a shame adults don’t skip

I spoke to Kim Corbin, an avid adult skipper and founder of the iskip.com website in 1999. She is the woman trying to get America to skip. She has already been interviewed by the BBC and Kerrang radio and is hoping to promote the sport in the UK. Her grassroots skipping foundation attracts skippers from all over the world.

“Sure I was worried about what people would think but it’s a very innocent and positive way to challenge some of the unspoken rules of our culture”. Life is much more enjoyable when your spirit is soaring and you aren't afraid to boldly express yourself! Skip on," says Kim.

Christopher Noxon, Author of Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes and the Reinvention of the American Grown-up, thinks adults are discouraged from such flagrant displays of frivolity and whims: “Like a lot of rejuveniles, adult skippers risk being judged as ridiculous, trivial or ‘not quite all there’.”

Anyway must dash as my personal trainer has just arrived, we are going for a skip!

Benefits of skipping

• Burns off more calories than running  

• Mood elevator

• Easier to skip in groups, so rather than jogging alone, skip in groups

Why do astronauts skip?

Scientists have found the potential of using the skipping gait in low gravity situations (such as on the moon). NASA transcriptions reveal that astronauts from the Apollo Missions used skipping as their gait of preference. Since running would be impaired due to the vertical force component being too low to maintain adherence to the ground and walking impaired due to a mismatch of potential energy and gravity.

* * *