We all suck at things as beginners. And toddlers, being newcomers to life, are the ultimate beginners. Ever seen one try to use a spoon? It’s disastrous.
Stop it. You’re embarrassing yourself.
This being said, we all know what it looks like when a toddler tries to run: the straight legs, the awkward waddle, the stomping feet that never seem to leave the ground. It’s almost as disastrous as their spoon usage. Some of us find it endearing, others find it hilarious, and others disconcerting. A calf or foal can run relatively gracefully within hours of its birth. Your kid has had over a year to figure this out. Why is he so bad at this?
While human kind’s notoriously slow mental and motor development compared to that of other animals may seem like the obvious answer, studies show that this is not in fact the case. A recent study on adult and child gaits explains that due to the incredible physical complexity of the human walk, its most effective, economical method is dependent on the size and proportions of the walker. This being said, due to the high energy costs of terrestrial locomotion, humans will generally seek out the most economical (or some might say “laziest”) methods for getting around, as shown in the study here, in which scientists recorded how people continuously adjusted their walking to different physical constraints.
According to the study on adult and child gaits, terrestrial animals experience “disproportionally higher power demands at smaller scales,” so your little tyke technically needs to do more work in less time in order to get around. In short, (pun sort of intended), proportions are everything, and your kid’s funny run comes down to locomotive economics. A toddler walk isn’t different from an adult walk because he doesn’t know what he’s doing, it’s different because he knows exactly what he’s doing, and is using a method that is best suited for his smaller, stubbier dimensions. With proportionally shorter legs and smaller strides, toddlers have less time to lift their feet off the ground as they move, and as they pick up speed into a run, they have even less time, which perhaps helps explain their “longer stance durations,” running with “marginally no aerial phase,” manifesting as a stiff limbed, clunky running gait.
Billy! What did daddy say about utilizing your aerial phase?
To demonstrate how much a biped’s physical dimensions affects how it moves, and to console you with the notion that your child isn’t alone in looking awkward, here’s a video of a computer simulation trying to figure out how to walk and run with different body proportions (it’s actually kind of funny. In a scientific way. Obviously).
Moral of the story is that your kid’s doing the best he can with what he’s currently got. For those of you who are worried about your ungainly child’s future athletic career, in a few years he could be running like a gazelle down the track or field. Unless, of course, he finds musical theater to be more his scene.
Science Explains Why Toddlers Run Like Ungainly Weirdos
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