Energy Express by Marilynn Preston

This month, I am enjoying life on a small Greek island, and around the corner from me is a new playground for children. Not exactly new — before the latest equipment arrived, it was a field starving for attention, overgrown with weeds, with a few pieces of battered junk that no self-respecting 8-year-old wanted to play on.

Overnight — which in Greece can take up to 5 years — the space was transformed from nothing terrible into something wonderful. The kids are laughing and whooping it up, swinging on the jungle gym, balancing on the see-saw, sliding down something that could be the tongue of a giant frog.

Playtime is crucial for a child's development. It's a way for girls and boys to overcome fear and learn to share. Free play builds strength, confidence and creativity in a way that texting 50 times a day never will.

When was the last time your little ones played in a playground? Do you even have one in your neighborhood?

In this neighborhood — in a tiny corner of a financially battered country that is slashing salaries and collecting taxes as fast as it can — the mothers didn't wait for the government to come build their kids a safe place to play.

Instead, they took matters into their own hands. As a small association — the Greeks call it a sillogos — the neighborhood moms and dads decided that a first-class playground was a priority for them. They saved, they fund-raised, they pooled their resources, and just last week, they made it happen — a revitalized play area with so much new equipment crammed into it the kids can barely move. That's OK. They'll figure it out. That's what the Greeks are known for.

My question is: Will you figure it out for your own kids this summer? Will you join forces with concerned others in your neighborhood and make sure your kids have a safe and fun place to play?

And what about your stress levels? Are you getting enough play time in your own life, to calm your anxieties and develop your own strength, confidence and creativity?

These are healthy lifestyle issues that must be addressed while I undress and head for the beach to practice unsafe sunning.

Before I go, consider this latest factoid about unfit kids:

Fat kids are bullied more.

New research out of the University of Michigan ("Go Blue!") made me think twice about the surging numbers of fat girls and boys we are growing in America.

The study — important enough to be featured in this month's journal of Pediatrics — reveals that when it comes to kids being mean and bullying other kids, the No. 1 target is a kid who weighs too much.

Mentally confused kids, smelly kids and girl kids still get picked on, but fat kids are the biggest target of all. And to make matters worse, the researchers found that fat kids who are bullied — already at greater risk for heart disease and diabetes — also experience more depression, anxiety and loneliness.

It's so sad. If you agree, you can join forces with the "Let's Move" campaign (www.LetsMove.org) that plans to wipe out obesity in kids in a single generation. This is a crazy wonderful promise that makes the Let's Visit Mars initiative look like a walk in the park, but goals are being set and efforts are being made. The more people who join "Let's Move," the greater its chance of success.

And there's something else we can do, something that the University of Michigan researchers strongly recommended: We can all stop putting such a premium on being thin. We've gone overboard on overweight. Obesity has become an extremely negative stereotype. Little kids, who have ballooned into big kids because they've been force-fed soda pop and chicken nuggets, are paying the price.

Kids must be taught empathy, as my sister the childhood development expert taught me. It's not something most kids are born with. A child who learns to be sensitive to another kid's feelings is not going to grow up to be a bully. That would make the world, as well as the playground, a much kinder, healthier, happier place. Which brings this column back full circle just in time for my afternoon dip in the sea.

ENERGY EXPRESS-O! IT'S A THIN LINE BETWEEN FIT AND FETISH

"Those who are morally untrained spend an inordinate amount of time on their bodies." — Epictetus

Marilynn Preston — fitness expert, personal trainer and speaker on healthy lifestyle issues — is the creator of Energy Express, the longest-running syndicated fitness column in the country. She has a website, http://marilynnpreston.com and welcomes reader questions, which can be sent to MyEnergyExpress@aol.com. To find out more about Preston and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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