Physical education and Obesity

Physical Education Counts

Obesity is a growing problem among children and teens in the United States; over thirty percent from ages six to nineteen are overweight. Many youth come up with different excuses for their weight issues: fast foods, not enough time to exercise, television/entertainment, and having no time to fix healthy foods along with many others. Though weight problems do not originate from only one source, there is a place that really needs improvement. One major problem that contributes to the prevalence of child obesity in the United States is the lack of sufficient time and ineffective exercises in P.E. and recess in schools. “According to Categorical Performance Monitoring (CPM), 48 percent of elementary schools and 23 percent of middle and high schools were noncompliant with the PE time standards in 2004-05” (LaFee2). In other words the state has set an amount of time that is required for PE, and schools are not meeting that requirement. I believe that there should be more Physical Education in schools and the requirements should be equal to the ones in the classroom to make the exercise more effective in keeping the rate of obesity down.
Recently, recess and PE have been pushed to the back burner in schools so there is more time for academics in the school day. Most teachers feel like they need this extra time in the academic setting to teach because of the stress that the state is putting on children, teens, and the teachers. The teachers, as well as students are pushed for performance on the state exams: the students to advance to the next level, and the teachers to keep their jobs. What the country, school systems and teachers are failing to realize or perhaps choosing to ignore, is that by cutting back on the hours of exercise, they are actually taking away from the academic success for the children. It has been proven that “children who are healthy are better learners than children who are not” (LaFee2). Physical activity also has been proven to help relieve stress for most people; this is a reason why it is easier for most teens to sit down and concentrate after they have gotten up, moved around and thought about something other than their school work. So by cutting back on recess and PE time, it is actually harming the grades, physical health, and mental health of our children and teens.
Passing a PE class does not require a state test on how hard a student worked and how much one has learned about being healthy, unlike every other subject taught in schools. We are choosing to educate our youth in four main core classes: Math, English, Social Studies and Science; but it seems we do not think that physical health is a serious enough issue to educate them on keeping themselves healthy and in the right weight range. We live in a country where we want our youth to be educated in as many scholarly ways as possible; why do we not think it is important for children and teens to learn about fitness that can keep them healthy and happy? Some may not believe a PE class should be in schools at all because they consider being physically fit (or not) should be a personal choice; and that it also leaves an easier target for bullies. This makes one think: if children are not educated on why they should be active, why they should be healthy, and why being overweight will cause problems for them in the future, they will not know the choices they have for themselves. These choices can simply be whether they want to get up and go for a run, or stay at home sitting on the couch watching television. This is because they will not have the knowledge it takes to make that decision. Also if the argument is that there should be no PE in schools because of bulling, think about how much kids are being bullied for being overweight or not being muscular enough. I believe that PE classes should be taken every year and be added into their report cards and grade point averages. The topics in PE should be expanded to teach all aspects of health and fitness to combat obesity in addition to exercise. I believe if this is done it will make physical health more important in the eyes of the students. If not at least it will make the youth more aware of what they are able to do about their health.
Many parents do not have the funds to enroll their children in a sport out of the standard school hours, and some do not have the time to take their children from school to a sport or a gym even if they can afford it. Additionally some parents think sports are too dangerous for their kids to be involved in. I am not blaming it all on the parents, some children do not care to play a sport, or will not get away from their electronics long enough to get interested enough to be involved in one. There is also the sad truth that some parents do not care about their children’s physical health, and these are probably the ones who have not been educated about their own physical health. If children cannot be involved in after school physical activities for many different reasons, then they should be getting exercise elsewhere. Since school is the place where youth spend more than half of their time, there needs to be a portion of the day dedicated just for some type of good physical education.
The Physical education that still exists in schools is not emphasized enough either. This has resulted in problems within the quality of PE and recess time that students do have. As aforementioned, there is not enough time put into PE classes and recess, but that is not the only problem with exercise in schools; in fact that is not even the major problem. “PE teachers are often insufficiently trained and their equipment inadequate, especially in less affluent communities” (LaFee3). This means the time that children and teens are actually putting into physical activity at school is often not rigorous or educational enough. I remember when I was in elementary school at recess a lot of the time I would just sit and talk with my girl friends. I was never made to go play a game like kickball, or play on the jungle gym; and I was never told in school that it was important for my health to go do something physical. If students are not taught to play games or sports or exercise activities in school, where else will most of them learn it?
Another problem that comes along with PE classes not taken seriously enough is, “Many PE classes are too big, exceeding 45 students, which translates into less real activity per student” (LaFee3). These classes need to be smaller; about the normal class size of twenty for the teacher to pay attention to each child and give individual instruction. Most schools try to keep down the classroom size of students, but when it comes to PE, many of the teachers see it as a break, a time for the children to entertain themselves. Children do need a break a time to entertain themselves, but that can be accomplished outside of school, after school is the perfect time for children to accomplish that. During PE classes the children need to be learning something and engaging in physical activity; after all they are at school to learn.
I believe that every elementary teacher needs to have some training in physical education. That way during recess the teachers are able to show their kid’s activities they can be doing and be knowledgeable enough to tell them why it’s important that they exercise. This could be something very simple like little games, just to get them up and moving around. Also during recess I believe that it would be a good idea to try different sports every once in a while. Maybe teach a fencing class, a dance class, or something like karate. By doing that, a child could find a passion that would have most likely not have been discovered on their own. In many cases the teachers let the children out and that’s it. I feel that if a teacher is knowledgeable about ways to get children to do some type of successful exercise during recess and give them motivation for doing so, that it would be a great success for the children.
It is paramount for children to be healthy and keep their weight under control for many reasons. A big reason is a lot of health problems result from being obese. Childhood obesity usually carries on to adulthood; I believe this happens mostly because they still will not have the knowledge on how to get healthy and the reasons why they should be that way. Health problems that have been reported due to obesity in children include: “adverse blood lipid profile, altered glucose metabolism, obstructive sleep [apnea], higher risk of hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, gall bladder disease and osteoarthritis in adulthood” (Sharma261). Obesity can even cause death; “It has been suggested that obesity is second only to smoking as a preventable cause of death.” (Sharma261). If obesity is a serious enough issue to cause death, shouldn’t that be a sufficient wake-up call for the school systems? Something obviously needs to change
Schools need to devote more instructional time to health and fitness in order to keep the rate of young obesity down. By making sure teachers fit some type of effective physical activity in every day and are trained on how to do so will help decrease the weight problems. Additionally educating the students on different ways they are able to work on their health outside of school and telling them the health problems that could occur will hopefully get them motivated. Within PE classes, students that need additional guidance and/or help should be given such by a professional and knowledgeable instructor. Time should be spent productively to ensure that students are getting the most out of it; no more wasted class periods chatting on the track. Within the PE classes there needs to be a small amount of students where the PE teacher that is very well trained makes them work hard and is able to pay attention to each student. We are building our future generations. To avoid a nation plagued with health problems, the change must start with physical education within our schools.

Works Cited
LaFee; Scott. “Let’s Get Physical! P.E. Struggles to Make the Grade.” Education Digest 73.6 (2008): 49-52. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 30 Jan. 2011
Sharma, M. "School-based interventions for childhood and adolescent obesity." Obesity Reviews 7.3 (2006): 261-269. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 5 Feb. 2011.
Story, Mary, Marilyn S. Nanney, and Marlene B. Schwartz. “Schools and Obesity Prevention: Creating School Environments and Policies to Promote Healthy Eating and Physical Activity.” Milbank Quarterly 87.1 (2009): 71-100. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 30 Jan. 2011

Cited: LaFee; Scott. “Let’s Get Physical! P.E. Struggles to Make the Grade.” Education Digest 73.6 (2008): 49-52. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 30 Jan. 2011 Sharma, M. "School-based interventions for childhood and adolescent obesity." Obesity Reviews 7.3 (2006): 261-269. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 5 Feb. 2011. Story, Mary, Marilyn S. Nanney, and Marlene B. Schwartz. “Schools and Obesity Prevention: Creating School Environments and Policies to Promote Healthy Eating and Physical Activity.” Milbank Quarterly 87.1 (2009): 71-100. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 30 Jan. 2011