SENIOR CORNER
Locker Room etiquette
JULIE CALLAWAY jlcallaway@ymcasi.org Julie Callaway is the Senior Wellness Director at the Floyd County YMCA. Each month she will be writing about senior wellness, giving ideas to keep this age group active physically and mentally.
I have worked for the YMCA for over 14 years and any time I go to training, a meeting, or a networking function with other workout facilities the conversation tends to lead to the locker rooms and how so many people walk around naked. People are always saying comments such as; “They shave naked,” “They have a conversation with me while naked,” “They sit on the benches with their naked rear end,” “They sit in the steam room naked.” It all just cracks me up because it is a locker room and that is where people change and shower. Back in the day at the YMCA when it was all men, they used to swim in the pools naked. Thank goodness we allow men and women now and that doesn’t happen anymore. My theory is that it happens more in the men’s locker rooms than the women’s, those people that are comfortable with their bodies don’t care who see them naked and older adults probably do it more than the younger ones. I remember in PE class in junior high school, the showers were group showers (hated it) but you had no choice but to be naked in front of your classmates. These days I would prefer not to be naked in front of people I really don’t know and I would prefer
not to walk around a corner and see someone’s naked body but all I have to do is move somewhere else in the locker room or turn around. But, for the sake of all those folks that are freaking out about it, here is some locker room etiquette: · Wrap a towel around yourself when in the shared area of the locker room · Use a changing stall whenever possible · If no changing stall, put as much clothing on with the towel in place before you take it off · Place a towel between your naked rear end and any place you sit down · Realize that you may not have a problem with being in a conversation while naked but the person you are talking to just might · If you are using a family locker room or an assisted locker room those are usually for both genders, so always be dressed when in the shared area. · Do not dry your bodies with the hand dryers So, the next time you visit a local work out facility and use the locker room, just keep the other people in mind and know that if you are naked you may be making someone uncomfortable.
ROUGH IT continued from page 24
aggressive situation. If your children start to engage in play that may be harmful to themselves or other playmates, simply stop their play only to bring the potential hazard to their attention. Your explanation of why it is harmful should be simple enough to get their attention, but no too detailed for them to forget.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS? According to the guidelines created by National Association for Sports and Physical Education, children over the age of three should be getting at least 60 minutes of unstructured physical activity. This is a great time to let kids explore their craving for big body play. It helps
many areas of a child’s development including brain function, decision making, muscular and skeletal development as well as body discovery. This rough style of play also helps kids learn how to properly interact with others. They learn that hitting makes the other kids cry and they can relate with that feeling. This in turn also helps them develop their communication skills (Carlson. Big Body Play. 2011) Keep this in mind next time you are about to tell you kids to, “stop that”. If they are smiling and having a great time, maybe there is no need to distinguish the rough-and-tumble play. But as always, keep them safe first and have fun roughing it. Southern Indiana Fitness Source / June 2013 / 25