ON December 11, at a university campus in Pudong, a college student suddenly dropped dead while playing basketball, apparently not because of any violent confrontations during the game.

On November 27, at the Donghua University Campus in Songjiang District, a junior college student fell into coma after completing a 1,000-meter endurance test. He failed to respond to subsequent emergency medical treatment.

On November 18, at a marathon race in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, a 21-year-old college student suddenly collapsed while dashing towards the finish. He died the next day.

In the same race, a 25-year-old corporate employee also dropped while sprinting to the tape, and was pronounced dead eight days later. The sponsor of the game is being sued for huge sums in compensation by the victims' families.

People are drawing different conclusions.

Some claim running marathon has always been a risky undertaking from the very start, for the first marathon runner - the messenger who ran from Marathon to Athens on August 12, 490 BC, bearing tidings of a victory in battle - died after the heroic run. But he likely died from heatstroke.

The recent spate of sports-related deaths are new evidence of the declining health of Chinese young people.

According to a report by the State Administration of Sports and the Ministry of Education September last year, the health of Chinese college students has seen steadily deterioration for the past 25 years, particularly in terms of their cardio-vascular function.

In 2010, the students who were studied were, on average, 10 percent less in vital capacity compared with students in 1985.

In face of recent deaths, colleges and universities are taking action - by discouraging students from taking part in events deemed risky.

In Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, at least 30 colleges and universities have decided not to include long-distance running in sports activities, to protect students from potential injuries and, more importantly, to protect the schools themselves from potential litigations in case of student injuries.

In a recent interview with the Oriental Morning Post, Guan Jun, a PE teacher at Xinzhong Senior High School in Zhabei District, said that it's risky to conduct physical education classes today.

Fear of litigation

"In the past, parents would not take a sprain or minor injury too seriously, but today some parents might make a scene at the school, or even threaten to go to court for mere scratches," he said. "Ultimately, the blame would be shifted to PE teachers."

As a precaution, some schools no longer require vigorous running laps, and stressful drills are minimized.

In primary schools the precautions can be so extreme that juanyang - raising children in pen like domestic animals - is becoming the norm today.

A third grader attending a primary school in Pudong said that except for two days a week, his class is not allowed to leave their seats, even during the lunch break, unless they have fulfilled their in-class assignment; assignments keep most students busy during breaks, thereby minimizing outdoor exposure.

The heavy burden of homework also minimizes pupils' chance of any outdoor activities after school. Typically a child is either at home, in the classroom, or on the road - to school, home or the next cramming session for tests.

Ironically, rural and urban students alike are fast losing interests in the mundane outdoors.

A report titled "The curse of Internet cafes: National rejuvenation cannot hinge on house-bound kids" (China Youth Daily, December 18), analyzed the health and social costs of Internet addiction.

Today, urban children are brought up on laptops, mobiles and iPads, rather than traditional toys.

In rural China, the idyllic scenes of children enjoying themselves to their hearts' content in the rolling hills or fields belong to the previous century. The reality today are the rows and rows of packed Internet cafes near schools.

In colleges and universities, it is the same. "Often you find a virtually deserted campus. Even in the dormitory, roommates rarely talk to each other, but are on their computer, busy interacting via QQ, weibo, or renren.com (a social portal)," the report said.

A health survey by the Ministry of Education in 2011 found that around 40 percent of primary school children suffer from myopia.

The eyes of my son used to light up at the suggestion of an outdoor walk and time in the sunshine, but today no tourist destination on earth would interest him. "Just leave me at my grandparents," he would say, not elaborating why.

He has minimal access to computer games, compared with his peers, but when he meets his best friend, their conversation is dominated by cybertalk, and their favorite real life games are those that they can pretend to be playing online. He almost never cries, but he wept copious tears on Monday because downloading of a game took so long that it almost used up his allotted computer time for the day.

Internet cafes

For years professor Tao Hongkai from Huazhong Normal University has been calling for outlawing Internet cafes because he believes that computers are not only compromising children's health, but their intelligence and their mental and emotional health as well. A small bit of evidence is that children fresh from computer games generally appear to be in a sort of trance.

Given China's huge market for computer games for children and youth, it should come as no surprise that Internet game creators are among the most dazzling start-ups and upstarts in China.

Many of them enjoy generous government subsidies, since many governments aspire to fuel local growth by developing "animation arts."

This industry, broadly defined as "cultural," allegedly has the merit of being "non-polluting" in terms of the physical environment.

In this national jockeying for growth, the plight of Internet game victims has been sanitized.

"He slouched in the sepulchral, murky recess of the Internet cafe, his wiry figure totally absorbed by the huge chair. There are few movements about him, except for the jerk he gives now and then after executing a particularly satisfying strike," according to one report describing an Internet addict surnamed Li.

Can we hope to achieve national rejuvenation with a younger generation whose health - mental and physical - is being eroded by the cyber world?

This could be a tough fight, and one whose outcome depends on whether our leaders would continue to approve of money made at the expense of the health of our children, in the name of "culture."