I’ve just passed a couple of weeks in the presence of several adults and two young children. The adults spent most of their time lounging in various designs of chair, while pursuing a variety of ‘activities’ – reading, computing, talking, eating, drinking; occasionally, they would stand still, doing other activities – cooking, washing up, pontificating; sometimes, they walked about; occasionally, they ‘did’ an intense bout of something more active, like swimming or lawn mowing.

The children spent very little time either sitting or standing still. They did a fair amount of walking and