My wife Alison and I love the Olympics. Especially the Winter Olympics. So naturally, during this year's games in Torino, we cast productivity aside and watched almost every event.

One of the biggest stories of the Games was Bode Miller, the outspoken American skiier. I really did not know much about Miller, but after the fifteenth "Join Bode" Nike commercial, I was finally tempted to go the website and see what he had to say. To my surprise, he was dead-on right about almost everything.

Today, I want to share one thing in particular that Bode was right about: we need to change the way our children think about athletics. To paraphrase, Bode wondered how it could be that we live in such a sports-crazed society, yet child obesity is soaring. If they love sports so much, why don't they participate in them? And for those that do, why do they stop after high school or college?

The answer of course, is that sports in America have completely lost what we like to call "the Olympic spirit." It's not about participating, it's not about having a good time, and it's certainly not about health (judging by the amount of steroids being used by athletes as early as junior high). Sports in 2006 is only about two things: money and fame.

Children get this message at an early age. So if they realize they are not likely to be the next Michael Jordan or Payton Manning, they quit. If they will never have the chance to sign a big contract or even get an hour in the spotlight playing for a smaller school in March Madness, then they wonder why they should go to the trouble. After all, sports are tiring.

So they sit on the couch and watch the elite athletes duking it out on TV while candy bar after potato chip finds its way into their mouths. This is one of the big reasons why we have a health crisis looming for the current generation of children.

So, what should sports be about, if not winning? Well, nobody is against winning, for starters. But winning is not what's truly valuable about sports.

The two most important reasons to play sports are simple. The first is health. Ask any doctor and they will tell you that you need to exercise at least 30 minutes a day. Not so you can sign a big contract or catch the eye of the opposite sex, but because exercise gives you energy, strength, resistance from disease, and a longer life. These are all things that parents need to be able to raise their children, and they are things we owe our children to try to give them as well.

The second reason to play sports is community. Friendships are built and strengthened when we play together. The sports your children participate in can be as structured as high school football, or as casual as tossing the frisbee in the back yard with siblings, but either way friendships will grow. The sense of comraderie you get from a shared exertion is tremendous. To this day, many of my best memories are the times I shared with my teammates on our high school track team and the afternoons spent on the tennis and basketball courts with my buddies from college. I guarantee our friendships would not have been as strong if we had bonded by watching the television instead of breathing the fresh air of the outdoors together.

So for your children's sake, teach them that sports are about fun, health, and friendships, not money and fame. And if they enjoy a sport that they aren't very good at, don't make the mistake so many American parents make of discouraging them from participating in it. It sounds cheesy and naive, but the fact is that a child who participates in sports is already a winner, regardless of whether they get the gold medal.

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Copyright, Paul Martin, Noss Galen Baby LLC 2006

Paul Martin and his wife Alison are the owners of Noss Galen Baby LLC, a small online business dedicated to offering innovative, hard-to-find products for babies and toddlers at affordable prices.

To see previous issues of Paul's "Live and Learn" newsletter, please visit http://www.NossGalenBaby.com/newsletter.html.