Citing "alarming health trends" on
kids' obesity, the American
Heart Association (AHA) is calling on schools
to aggressively promote physical education throughout
the academic day.
The organization is proposing nine practical
steps that elementary schools, high schools, child
development centers, colleges, universities, school
districts and states can all take to provide opportunities
for elementary and high school kids to exercise.
"Kids spend a lot of time in the schools
for a lot of years, and in order for them to be
as physically active as they need in order to
be healthy, schools are going to have to take
the initiative," said Russell Pate, chairman
of the group that drafted the recommendations,
and a professor of exercise science at the University
of South Carolina, in Columbia.
Fueling the concern, the AHA said, is the dramatically
rising obesity rates among American children over
the past two decades: About 16 percent of kids
aged 6 to 19 are now considered overweight.
And a 2003 survey showed that more than one third
of the students spend no more than 20 minutes
a day on vigorous activity, while their time in
front of the TV is up to three hours daily, the
AHA added.
The AHA statement, published this week in Circulation,
calls for:
- Schools to establish a daily minimum of 30
minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity during
school hours, and set up health education programs
that encourage exercise and discourage sedentary
behavior;
- Schools to establish optional exercise programs
outside school hours, provide extracurricular
sports clubs, and promote safe walking and biking
routes to school;
- States to ensure that physical education (PE)
programs are taught by certified and highly
qualified teachers, and to hold schools accountable
for the adequacy of such programs and for ensuring
they are part of a core curriculum;
- Child development centers and elementary schools
to ensure at least 30 minutes of daily recess
for exercise;
- Higher education groups to establish programs
that produce highly qualified PE and health
education teachers.
The AHA statement cites a host of statistics
that suggest that school exercise is sorely lacking.
- Between 1991 and 2003, the percentage of high
school students taking PE classes dropped from
more than 41 percent to little more than 28
percent.
- Between 6 percent and 8 percent of schools
at all grade levels offer PE at the recommended
levels of between 150 and 225 minutes a week,
depending on student age.
- Fewer than 33 percent of those kids who live
within a mile of their school get there by walking
or biking. That figure drops to just 3 percent
for kids residing within two miles of their
school.
With exercise getting such failing grades, one
expert applauds the effort to prioritize PE. However,
Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention
Research Center at the Yale University School
of Medicine, cautions that schools are currently
caught between a rock and a hard place.
"I support the statement, and I think every
parent and school should support it," he
said. "But while it's well and good for the
AHA to say that schools should promote physical
activity, we can't just leave it at that, because
they will ask us to help make it possible at a
time when we've actually been making it more and
more difficult for them to do so."
In that regard, Katz highlighted the impact that
the 2002 passage of the federal "No Child
Left Behind Act" (NCLB) has had on school
curricula.
Emphasizing "core" subjects such as
math and reading, the law has dramatically increased
pressure to allocate more time for standardized
test preparation, he noted.
As a result, Katz suggested that PE programs
and even recess breaks are being pushed to the
national backburner, where cutbacks and even elimination
have become the trend.
"I've said that NCLB is leaving far too
many children on their behinds," said
Katz, a father of five. "So while I agree
that schools have an obligation to cultivate the
physical, as well as mental, well-being of children,
we can't impose an additional burden without offering
empowering and creative strategies."
To that end, Katz suggests that educators take
a fresh and practical look at how PE could perhaps
be integrated directly into classroom studies
-- so that mental and physical activities aren't
forced to compete for time and money.
On that point, Pate agreed.
"He's right about that, and our view is
that it doesn't have to be an either-or situation,"
he said. "We think the schools can deliver
both excellent academic programs and the physical
activity students need during the school day."
