How to get children walking
Walking shapes how bodies grow
There’s a certain clarity that only early morning light can bring to the rainforest. By midafternoon the combination of humidity and cloud makes everything feel a little murky. But right now, the shadows across the bright orange road were still crisp, stark black. The night’s downpour had broken before dawn, and another tropical day was heating up. Where the sunlight fell on the damp earth, it steamed.
On either side of the road, small paths wended away into the dark forest. I was darting from one to the next. Staying hidden in the shadows, but keeping an eye on the group of children some way ahead of me. It was their first day walking alone to this school and I was torn between baseless fear for their safety and desperately wanting them to feel that they had their autonomy.
From behind me, while I hovered at the mouth of a path like a clownfish in an anemone, I heard the voices of children. Two older kids, and a little boy of no more than three who had one hand in his brother’s, and one hand clutching his lunch bowl. The older children politely greeted me. I asked how far they’d come. They looked blank. I asked how long it took them to walk to school. They shrugged. In a village where the older adults remembered time before clocks, the concepts of time and distance are still fluid. Things take as long as they take.
A few days later, no longer feeling the need to stalk my own children, I strapped my toddler on my back and we explored that path. After about thirty-five minutes, I emerged into a clearing. There were two houses with palm roofs and hammocks slung under the overhang. I sat and chatted with the occupants. Walking home, I thought about that young child. His walk to school probably took him an hour. His walk home, the same. Every day.
What would that do to his body?
Walking is vital for long-term good physical health
There’s a reason that the most enduring health advice in the Western world (next to “Run it under a cold tap”) is “Walk it off!”. Walking, quite simply, is magic. Let me lay out the reasons why:
It takes us to new places to do things.
It creates repeated small impacts, which build and strengthen bones.
Every step is a slight stretch, balancing the tension in the major trunk muscles.
Every step pumps fluid through our joint cartilage, keeping it healthy.
Every step pumps blood back up towards our hearts, making their jobs easier, and clearing accumulated fluid from our feet and legs.
It releases chemicals in the brain that speed learning to help us map new environments in our minds.
It boosts creativity and reduces stress.
It improves metabolic health.
Getting kids walking early is a great move, both for them and the adults that they will become. As soon as they walk, they start to get all of the above benefits. However, as is the theme of these articles, walking in childhood also improves adulthood health by growing a stronger, more effective body, by delaying the risk of chronic diseases, and by building a habit of walking for fun and purpose which will carry these other benefits into adulthood in its back pocket.
Let’s just go through what walking does for kids raised in traditional cultures, why it’s not giving those benefits to us here in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic) cultures, and what we can do to fix that.
Various aspects of traditional cultures facilitate walking
Successful walking requires balance, strength, sensation, and motivation. And fortunately, human evolution has provided the necessary inputs to help babies develop those capabilities before they actually start to walk.
Balance
Just like with riding a bike, one of the biggest skills that needs to be learned before you can walk successfully is balance.
Infants learn to balance by:
Calibrating the balance sensors (consisting of the accelerometers in the inner ear, the stretch-sensitive spindle sensors in the body's tendons, and the pressure sensors in the skin),
Using those calibrated sensors to experience how far you can lean without falling over,
Learning from that experience to avoid movements that are going to push you beyond that point.
Steps 2 and 3 require falling. Hence, babies from all cultures fall over. A lot. Both from sitting and standing. It's important to learning balance and, as long as they do their falling early while they're still pretty light, they don't seem to mind.
Learning balance comes naturally when you spend your days balancing yourself while being carried in various ways by various adults, interspersed with sitting unsupported on a mat.
Strength
Walking requires strong arms (to pull you up), strong legs (to hold you up), and a strong core (so your top doesn’t flop about). Core strength and, to a certain extent, arm strength comes from being carried in arms or in a simple sling.
Crawling helps develop some leg strength, but standing builds the walking muscles. Most babies can bear their weight through their feet from the age of six weeks or so, but they can't yet balance themselves.
But when babies in traditional communities are held upright, they display just how built to walk they are: they have a ‘stepping reflex’. They try to take steps whenever they're held upright with their feet touching a solid surface.
This reflex is present from birth, but, for a long time, WEIRD scientists believed it was lost at about two months of age and then returned when the baby is around a year old. A highly unusual disappearing, reappearing link.
This is, of course, nonsense. It's only true in WEIRD countries where babies aren't held on their feet (and even here remains present in water, where our heavier, weaker babies can still step their legs). In non-WEIRD countries the reflex is maintained and increases throughout the first year, preparing the babies well for starting to walk on their own. Just allowing babies to practise stepping for a few minutes a day is enough to strengthen their legs and get them walking earlier.
Sensation
Babies need to be able to feel the ground, so they can balance, and grip the ground, so they can move forward. Feet are incredibly well designed to do this - the 26 bones in the feet are held in a configuration that allows them to flex around the texture of the ground and reduce the amount of work that the rest of your body has to do to balance. Additionally, the soft skin means that there is a lot of contact with the ground, providing good grip for propelling yourself along.
Much of the skill of walking comes from interpreting the signals sent by the feet.
Motivation
Babies all over the world start off with approximately the same amount of motivation to walk, which is ‘lots’. It's exciting, it feels good, and it brings the things you want closer to you.
Whether they keep that motivation and become adept little scamperers is mostly up to the motivation of their parents or family.
In between time spent sleeping, watching from a sling, or sitting on a piece of cloth, the babies I met in Malawian villages were played with by a near-constant procession of visitors, aunties and uncles, and (importantly) other children. When they eventually walked, there was laughter and applause which continued for days, delighting each new visitor in turn, myself included. And walking then unlocked days of playing and chasing and exploring. After this, they can follow their parents, they can fetch things, they can be helpful. Slowly at first, but soon quick enough to be useful.
Walking is so useful in Tanzania and Malawi that there's a traditional wooden device, like a spindly tricycle, that villages make to help babies learn to walk.
Various aspects of WEIRD cultures delay walking
Unfortunately many aspects of our culture make walking harder for children.
Balance
I said that babies need to learn to fall before they can learn to not fall, right? But this is easier said than done in our culture.
WEIRD baby environments are engineered to prevent falling over (think backed seats, baby bouncers, and parents diving to intercept before a wobble can become a topple). Babies that aren’t able to learn to fall are likely to take longer to learn to balance.
Strength
One thing I couldn’t help noticing while we were away was the cultural differences in baby aspect ratios. WEIRD culture tells us that babies are in landscape mode. They're objects that lie down. When you interact with them (if you interact with them at all), you go to them and they stay horizontal.
Every other culture I've checked (which admittedly is only on three continents, but it's a start) tells people that babies are in portrait mode. They're meant to be standing up. When you interact with them, you pick them up and hold them vertical, very often by helping them stand. And this is so automatic. People hold babies upright. This means that the babies spend months strengthening their legs and practising stepping. And they love it! Upright babies are happy babies - their legs are stronger, their guts are happier, and their burps can escape.
But it’s not just about portrait vs landscape babies. In WEIRD cultures, we make it harder for babies’ legs to work properly.
We put something in the way.
Most western babies are kept in nappies or diapers - on average until they are three years old. These devices, especially when wet, push the legs apart, making walking much more difficult. Put a rolled-up coat in your knickers and try it some time. It's exhausting! For added realism, do this for a whole day and night and then feel the effects on your back and hips.
Sensation
Hey, just for fun, let's invent a perfect baby-walking-delayer! Are you ready? Ok, what do we know so far? We know that, in order to walk, babies need to:
feel the floor to get their balance
flex and bend their ankles to stay upright
grip the floor to move forward and not slip over
So, the perfect baby-walking-delayer would obscure sensation of the floor, get in the way of the ankles, and be smooth or slippery underneath.
Congratulations, we just invented baby shoes!
I'm not going to go into depth here - I’ve got other posts about shoes. But let me say now: for babies and children (and adults, tbh), unless there's risk of actual damage from the cold or sharp objects, then the best shoes for improving walking are no shoes.
Motivation
Baby walking is remarkably undervalued in WEIRD cultures. Maybe it's a time thing. We may have all the money and all the gadgets, but us WEIRDos live in tiny isolated families doing everything individually rather than as a village. This inefficiency makes us very time poor. Mothers especially have a million things to do and no time in which to do them.
As a result, we don't have time for our babies to totter slowly about, and we certainly can't leave them at home unattended. Often we need to confine them to seats or buggies if we're going to get everything done.
And while, like Tanzania and Malawi, we do invent devices for almost-walking children, our devices are usually to prevent walking. Alongside buggies, leashes, and prams to restrain them, there are balance bikes and scooters to allow little kids to skip walking all together and get closer to the speed of an overburdened, stressed-out adult.
Because we bypass this joyful tottering/walking stage, our kids lose their motivation and they don’t develop the strength they need to walk comfortably. Walking becomes a chore, children start complaining, and us parents can’t imagine how anyone could enjoy going for a walk.
How can we help children to walk more?
Maintain the stepping reflex - This primitive reflex is normally lost in WEIRD babies due to lack of use. You can maintain it by holding babies up and slowly moving them forward so their toes drag a little. They’ll step. It’s pretty cool. And watch their faces when they do so!
Get them standing - Babies get heavier fast. If they’re already standing, this means they get strong fast. If not, it means that standing slips out of their reach fast. Get them standing early. Preferably by only holding their hands. Preferably with their hands lower than their shoulders (so you’re not pulling them upwards).
Lose the buggy (or never buy one) - We paid £30 for a buggy/stroller being sold at the side of the road. It had a bit of a wonk on the front wheel and was almost impossible to fold up without the help of an entire cadre of engineers. This meant that we used it only when we really had to - the sling was a much easier option. As a result, as they grew heavier they were more and more strongly encouraged to do at least some of their own walking. And the varied carrying that we did was great for our strength too. Carrying is one of the foundational human references (see Katy Bowman reference below).
Buy good shoes and try not to use them - Good shoes are ones the intended wearer can roll up in both directions, are widest at the toe, have no heel, and stay on. For sizing, let the kid (or adult if you’re feeling brave) run about barefoot for five minutes (to relax all the structures of the foot), then draw around the foot with toes splayed, then take that drawing shoe shopping. There are companies that sell custom made ‘minimal shoes’, but water shoes are much cheaper and often available second hand. But, remember, please, that shoes are for when no-shoes is not possible.
Aim to walk for an hour a day - Don’t have time for it? Get inventive. Breakfast took so long you had to drive to school? Next time, they can eat and walk simultaneously. Can’t go for a walk, gotta learn times tables? Maybe learn them (you’ll never guess where this is going) while walking.
Re-understand tiredness - Tiredness on a walk is not a sign this walk is too long. It's a sign previous walks were too short.
Model using walking as a normal mode of transport for distances less than 5km.
Make walking a part of celebrations. Since the children were two years old, they’ve had a birthday walk that is a mile for every year of their age. Early walks are slow and short. Later walks are faster and long. Birthday walks always end at somewhere to get food, they are usually linear, and they often involve friends or relatives. They have plenty of snacks and lots of stories. And importantly, they help a child know their own walking abilities. Two miles seems a much shorter distance when you know that you have walked eight.
There's surprisingly little research done on early walking, but there's enough: we know that babies who walk early have stronger leg bones as children and a hip shape that reduces their risk of hip fracture in later life. Children who are more physically active at a young age grow not only stronger bones but also thicker cartilage, reducing their risk of osteoarthritis in adulthood.
It's possible for WEIRD babies to get the continued motivation, muscle training, and bare feet that they need to walk early and enjoy it. It’s hard, occasionally it’s counter-cultural and embarrassing, but it is possible.
Getting our kids walking more earlier would have a profound effect on their health starting then, and continuing into adulthood.
As they say, that’s one small step for man, but about six or seven for a toddler, depending on height, gait, and ground conditions.
What’s your first step?
Want to hear my partner and I discuss our experiences of helping make walking part of our children’s lives? We have a podcast where we use the topic from the previous post and give context and examples to help bring it to life. There’s also a weekly news section where we dive into interesting research into child development from the previous week.
This is the sound of Sunday evenings in our house!
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Notes
Walking pumps blood up your legs: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvsv.2024.101996
Walking speeds learning: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29078742/
Walking boosts creativity: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24749966/
Walking reduces stress: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6064756/
Children walking to school have lower visceral adiposity and better metabolic health than those who don’t, independent of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/1479-5868-10-12
Walking in childhood also improves adulthood health: Boreham, Colin, and Chris Riddoch. "The physical activity, fitness and health of children." Journal of sports sciences 19.12 (2001): 915-929.
Falling doesn’t seem to deter babies from walking: The Impact of Errors in Infant Development: Falling Like a Baby Danyang Han and Karen E. Adolph New York University
WEIRD babies lose their stepping reflex:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3175590/
Getting babies stepping early preserves the reflex: Zelazo, Philip R. "The development of walking: New findings and old assumptions." Journal of Motor Behavior 15.2 (1983): 99-137.
Babies are toilet trained later: Blum, Nathan J., Bruce Taubman, and Nicole Nemeth. "Why is toilet training occurring at older ages? A study of factors associated with later training." The journal of pediatrics 145.1 (2004): 107-111.
Carrying is one of the foundational human movements - see Katy Bowman’s article on this here (https://www.nutritiousmovement.com/articles/your-movement-diet-macronutrients , and more in her excellent book “Grow Wild”)
Nappies interfere with gait: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2012.01169.x
Early walkers have stronger leg bones: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S8756328214003044
This study suggested that the shape of the top of the femur in early walkers was less likely to lead to hip fracture, a surprisingly dangerous fracture in older people, and one that is distressingly common in women especially. It also suggested that the shape of the joint might slightly increase the risk of hip osteoarthritis. https://academic.oup.com/jbmr/article/34/3/455/7605986
Physically active children have stronger bones: https://acrjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/acr.22588
Physically active children have thicker cartilage https://acrjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/acr2.11323
For our kids I bought two 1/2” dowels about 3’ long. You hold one dowel in each hand like hiking poles. You stand over the sitting baby and dangle the ends of the dowels in front of them. Usually the baby will instinctively grab the bottom of one dowel in each fist and try to pull up to standing. This allows you to easily support them in a standing position without bending over (great for tall dads). In addition, it keeps you from “steering” them subconsciously as they walk. The baby determines which direction to go and you follow behind, supporting them with the dowels held out in front of you.
I'm so grateful for your Substack! Keep up the amazing work!