Giving Compass' Take:

• Laura Collins reports that new research reveals that Australian children have less athletic ability than their parents, a concerning backsliding trend. 

• How can funders work to increase active time for children? what programs have successfully increase outdoor time?  

• Learn about the importance of physical activity for kids. 

Australian children cannot jump as far as their parents, according to new research, and their sporting abilities and participation rates are on the downward slide.

The research by Active Healthy Kids Australia (AHKA) identified that children, in general, are not doing the activities they were in the past, including playing hopscotch, climbing trees, and skipping rope.

AHKA co-chair Natasha Schranz has been leading the research and said the reduced participation in these activities has led to children's muscular fitness decreasing.

Some of the material guiding Dr Schranz and her team included research published in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport earlier this year, which detailed the lengths achieved by children while completing a long jump.

The research stated that the length of long jumps had decreased for boys aged 9-11 years by 4.5cm in 30 years and 7.6cm for boys aged 12-15 years.

Meanwhile, the jump for girls aged 9-11 years had decreased by 8.5cm and by 9.3cm for 12-15-year-olds.

"We know that over the last 30 years ... muscular fitness, specifically looking at muscular power and standing long jump has declined, so kids today aren't as muscularly fit as say, their parents were," Dr Schranz said.

Read the full article about Australian children by Laura Collins at ABC.