The smallest person in the room is 18 months old. She cannot yet say her own name clearly, but she can do a passable downward dog. Around her, a dozen toddlers are hopping, crawling, and rolling on mats, filling the room with shrieks and giggles. A trainer moves among them, adjusting a tiny elbow here, steadying a wobbling toddler there. It is a Monday evening in Surat. These children are too young for school, and this is not a playgroup. Monthly fees for the training sessions start at Rs 2,500. They cover warm-ups, toe-strengthening, push-ups, pull-ups, yoga, meditation, dance, aerobics and gross-motor-skill exercises. The trainer does not call any of it a workout, and the children think they are playing. Ask any parent why they enrolled their child, and two answers come up almost every time — screen addiction and the desire to build healthy habits early. Early starters One of Surat’s earliest enrollees was Nivan Choksi, now three, who has been attending sessions for over a year. He started before he turned two, barely months after he learned to walk. His mother Amita is a PhD scholar who noticed early that her son had more energy than their home could absorb. “He was very energetic and we realised it after he started walking shortly after turning one,” she says. “To help him utilise his energy in a good way, we tried fitness training and it has worked very well.”
The social adjustment is almost an afterthought when trainers describe these sessions
The phone, as many parents like her have found out, became less interesting almost on its own. “That is a major advantage. Getting children to be physically active is the surest way parents have found to keep them off screens. Parents prefer these fitness programmes because they introduce children to sports from an early age,” says Surat fitness coach Pamir Shah. Coaches say the structured routine, and the small give-and-take of group life, prepare children for preschool. Children who attend regularly tend to settle into formal schooling faster, with less separation anxiety and less resistance to routine, they say.The screen problem After Covid, screen dependence in children hardened from habit into something parents found genuinely difficult to undo. Devices that had kept children occupied during lockdowns did not get put away when schools reopened. Parents started noticing the drift. A child who preferred a YouTube video to a ball, a four-year-old demanding a phone at the dinner table, a toddler who melted down the moment the TV was switched off. It became one of the defining parenting concerns of the decade. In Ahmedabad, Devanshi Jadav had been watching the same pattern take hold, particularly in nuclear households where both parents are working. She set up a fitness programme for young children specifically to pull them off screens.
Getting children to be physically active is the surest way parents have found to keep them off screens
“Many children spend most of their time with nannies, grandparents or alone at home. Mobile phones and televisions often become their main source of entertainment,” she says. Her programme is now in its fifth year, with about 25 children attending regularly. Excessive screen exposure, she adds, leads to reduced socialisation, difficulty making friends and limited outdoor play, a pattern she has observed in the children who come to her. From tired to thriving Drashti Patel from Surat enrolled her son in a fitness centre when he was three. He was the kind of child who needed to sit down after mild physical activity. “So we decided to enrol him in a fitness centre,” she says. A year of sessions later, the difference is visible to her. “His stamina has improved and he holds his own in sporting activities in a way he simply did not before.” In Ahmedabad’s South Bopal, Parth Talati heard about a toddler fitness programme from a colleague at work. He and his wife both work in private companies. They are a nuclear family with no extended support at home, and they were looking for something that would give their son Hiyansh more than just an occupation. They enrolled him in the programme six months ago. Every evening from 6.30 to 8.30, Hiyansh does floor exercises, Surya Namaskar, meditation, gymnastics and chanting alongside children his age. Talati says the change at home has been stark. Hiyansh, who was glued to the television before, has largely lost interest in it. “He mingles and plays with boys and girls his age. He doesn’t remember the TV anymore,” Talati says. Three months ago, Prabhleen Kaur, a homemaker from Ahmedabad’s Ghuma, enrolled her four-year-old son Mehrab in a children’s gym with a focused intention — she wanted him to develop body awareness and the ability to concentrate. Mehrab had been spending long hours glued to the screen. Today, the phone is no longer the first thing he reaches for. But what surprises her most is his changed behaviour. “He is able to concentrate and has developed patience. He has also been enjoying group activities and has learned to share things with other children,” she says. Shreya Patel, from Vadodara, believes that healthy habits are best nurtured early in life.
The social adjustment is almost an afterthought when trainers describe these sessions
“Fitness is the key to everything these days,” she says. Concerned about the rising incidence of lifestyle diseases, she wanted her four-year-old daughter, Heer, to grow up “making exercise a habit, not task”. So she enrolled her in a fitness studio in Manjalpur. Satyajit Singha, who runs the studio, says, “Many parents are sending their three- and four-year-old children to fitness studios in Vadodara. I train children as young as four.”More than just fitness The social adjustment is almost an afterthought when trainers describe these sessions. Yet it is what parents end up valuing most. Mansi Parikh has been running a children’s fitness programme in Ahmedabad for five years. At her academy, she currently trains around 150 children aged between two and five years. Through school-based morning sessions, she reaches over 1,200 more. Obstacle courses are among the most popular activities, in which children jump, balance, crawl and complete tasks to reach the finish line, building coordination and focus without realising it is what they are doing. “Parents now understand that physical development is as important as academic growth,” she says.
With regular physical activity, a child’s food habits also improve, trainers say
“Structured movement-based activities help them develop strength, confidence and social skills.” In Surat, Rutu Doshi is precise about what her sessions are about. “Training for toddlers focuses on functional fitness, gross motor skills and overall development,” she says. “Yoga and meditation improve a child’s focus, which helps later as they grow.” Toral Bhansali, another trainer from Surat, has noticed something parents do not always expect when they sign up. “With regular physical activity, a child’s food habits also improve,” she says. They also sleep better. The phone goes away and so do some of the other problems that came with it. An alternative to parks All of this, though, raises an uncomfortable question. Why are parents paying for something that cost nothing a generation ago? A CEPT University study in Nov 2025 found that Ahmedabad provides just 0.5 square metres of open public space per person — less than half of Mumbai’s already modest 1.08 square metres, and under five percent of what India’s own urban planning guidelines recommend. Of the 357 municipal parks in Ahmedabad, the average neighbourhood-level space has shrunk to just 48 square metres. Spaces that size, the report notes, are “structurally incapable of accommodating running, jumping or team sports”. For around 40% of the households in Ahmedabad, the nearest park is 300 metres away. Western localities like Thaltej have 1.6% open space; in older eastern zones like Vadaj, that figure drops to 0.3%. A word of caution It is not just a planning failure. It is a health problem. Dr Nishchal Bhatt, a senior paediatrician and adolescent health consultant, sees the consequences in his clinic regularly. “Due to easy access to screens and a lack of available grounds, physical activity has drastically reduced, causing muscle mass and bone density to drop and obesity to increase,” he says. But he is not entirely convinced that fitness centres are the answer. Gyms, he points out, do not teach children to negotiate, compete, lose gracefully or function as part of a team. “Sports are essential to create future life skills such as communication and problem-solving, which gyms simply do not provide.” He also cautions that poorly supervised exercise risks injuring the still-developing muscles and tendons of young children. His prescription is plain: get at least one hour of daily physical activity, preferably outdoors in daylight, since insufficient sun exposure can lead to vitamin D deficiency. “I always advise parents to prioritise schools with big playgrounds and enrol children in sports coaching to develop discipline,” he says. Rutul Joshi, senior associate professor at CEPT’s Faculty of Planning, says the city has tools it is not using. Town planning schemes, he argues, can create larger parks by merging multiple plots across schemes.“Major open spaces must be designated before land goes to commercial auction. Institutional grounds should be opened for public use through registration agreements,” he says. Until any of that happens, parents will keep paying Rs 2,500 a month for what a park should have provided for free.
