India's 3-Year-Old Marathon Boy | Shocking Story

[siddharth]

India's marathon boy, aged three
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4241958.stm"
This is shocking! 48 kilometers on a daily basis! . He's only 3 years old! This could do serious damage to his health.

 

[Moonbear]

I agree. Anyone who pays attention to horse racing knows that when they are trained to race while too young, they wind up with a lot of bone and joint injuries later in life due to all the impact on still growing bones. I'd be worried the same would happen to a child running so much...not to mention who knows what will happen when he should reach puberty and is on this high energy diet combined with high energy expenditure...maybe nothing, maybe not. And I also wonder about the psychological effect of being on a such a training schedule from such a young age rather than just going out and playing with other children and learning to socialize, etc.

Of course the part of the story that shocked me before I even got to the part about him running marathon distances is that he was sold! It seems that the writer of the story isn't even ruffled that this kid was sold into slavery! That's horrible!