Out of Sight, Out of Mind, Out of shape

A study that lasted from 1999-2002 titled "Prevalence of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents: United States" reported that over 9 million adolescents 6-19 are overweight or obese. The study also showed that this number has tripled since the 1980’s.

There’s plenty of blame to spread around on this topic. You could take the easy route and place the blame on television, Internet and video games. Some will blame the parents for not stressing the importance of exercise to their children. But the problem could very well rest in our schools.

The National Association of Sport and Physical Education recommends 45 minutes of gym a day for middle and high school students. This sounded pretty damn sweet, but not too fast! Cornell University later found out that most children were averaging only 16 minutes of actual physical activity per class. Reading these articles on this subject made me realize how physical education is deemphasized as you progress in the school system.

When I first started elementary school it was normal to have gym 5 times a week and a daily recess, but that only lasted from grades 1-4. For grades 5-8 gym was cut to only 3 days week, and recess was no longer offered. In high school physical education takes an even bigger hit, because in order to graduate from high school only two years are required. And throughout the course of those two years the time is split between health/sex education, and driver’s Ed.

For a society that’s so obsessed sports you’d think gym would seem as important as English, math and science. While not it as crucial as those subjects tossing gym to side does send a message to kids that it doesn’t matter. Thus resulting in more out of shape kids, who could at least receive some mandatory exercise if it was available to them.

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/childhood-obesity-statistics-facts.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6109027