Physical Education Programs In School Not Enough To Combat Obesity In Most States:

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Physical Education Programs In School Not Enough To Combat Obesity In Most States: Study Posted: 07/09/2012 242 pm EDT

Updated 06/18/2014 559am EDT

Only six states nationwide require the recommended 190 minutes of elementary school-based physical education, according to a study by University of Georgia kinesiolog’ professor H9an Mccullick. Two states require adequate physical educatiDn instruction in middle school, but no stairs do so for high school students. Guidelines are set by the National Association of sport and Physical Education. McCullicks study examined the role of federal courts in interpreting ambiguous physical education statues. While public health reforms have emphasized school-based physical education as a means of combatting the childhood obesity epidemic, the studvs results found that courts h-nicallv do not interfere ‘sih state legislative decisions conceniing curriculum. Findings indicated thai statutes were written in a manner that did not explicitly mandate school-based physical education but rather recommended or suggested it,” McCullick wrote in his report, which was published in the June issue of the Journal of Tee ching in Physical Education. Many schools are reducing or eliminating their physical education programs due to budget cuts, cnmhined with a greater emphasis on academic performance. According to McCulhick, a lack of firm requirements reduces the likelihood that schools will adhere to the guidelines. Generally, American high school courses last about 50 minutes per period, totaling just 250 hours of physical education coursework per week. Schools would exceed the recommended 225-minute guideline if states required four credits of physical education courses, but no states do so. New Jersey boasts the strangest requirement of all stales, mandating 3.75 credits of physical edutcation for graduation, or about 187.5 minutes per week. But the number still falls 37.5 minutes short of the guideline. In Iowa. the state’s statute required that physical education be taught in elementary schools, but did not speci how often and included the ambiguous cording pupils in kindergarten through grade five shall engage in physical activity for a minimum of 30 minutes each school day.” According to McCullick, since physical activity can take many forms and does not a require a specialist. Iowa school officials would technically be adhering to the statue if they allowed students 30 minutes of recess each day. That said. Recess dues not guarantee 30 minutes legislators and school officials thunk tite opposite.

of moderate to vigorous

physical activity,

McCulliek said. Tnfodunately, many

The U.S. Department of Health and human Sen-ices recommends that children and adolescents should engage in at least So minutes of physical activity daily. A 200g sttn-ey found that only i8 percent of high school students adhered to this recommendation, ‘clule only 33 percent attended physical education class each day. MORE: yi2_o Childhood Obesily Mtddte School Physical Education Physical Educatton in Schools tmp.ct Spo’Is Chtldhood obflttY Physical Education Huffington PonI Searon y5flr1e

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From the community: Representative Ron Sandack Files Bill to Allow for Local Control of Physical Education Curricula

Fasted by WbiIaO. Commundy Contributor Community Contributor WbiIao Stale Representative Ron Sandack IR-Downers Grose) filed a hill today that snuld remn’e the five-day-per-week mandate for physical education classes for students in Illinois. Illinois is the only state that currently requires all K-12 students to participate in daily physical education classes at school. Sandack’s bill. 11111330. would eliminate the mandate and allow local leaders to decide how much PE should he required in tlteir schools. ‘lt has long been my opinion that decisions regarding education are best left to the local level, said Sandack. “HB 1330 allows parents and school hoards to control the curriculum as it relates to physical education for their students.” The bill seeks to amend the Scltnol Code and put decisions regarding PE participation firmly into the hands of local school districts. This bill does not seek to eliminate physical education in our schools. said Sandack. ‘It simply puts tlte decision-making poser for PE cuthculum ‘tatters into the hands of local hoards: of education. Sandack pointed to childhood obesity statistics as proof that daily PE is not producino healtltier studeoLs. ‘I think a lot of people would have espected the childhix,d obesity rate to drop once daily PE ss as mandated in our schools. said Sandack. We just havent seen it. Etc childhood obesity rate is stilt unuceeptahly high. and there has been no prtxsf that dail PE has changed the trend in Illinois.’

While ic supports thee iminacion of the PP mandate. Sandack maintains that daily physical activity is very important for all people. ‘No one is dehating lie salue ot daily physical acti sily.” Sandack said, ‘Sut I firmly believe that parents and local hoards of educations are quite capable of making decisions that arc in he lwst interests of students,” HB 1331) has tcn Lssiutted to the House Elementan & Secondan Education- Curriculum & Policies Committee. 1/0.5 unit

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Copyright © 2015, Chicago Tribune

Education

Despite Obesity Concerns, Gym Classes Are Cut By AL BAKERJULY 10, 2012

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Ronny Rodriguez. a physical education instructor at Sheridan Academy for Young Leaders, an elementary school in the Bronx, ran 12 students through a rigorous 50-minute class. Credit Librado Romero[fhe New York Times

More than a half-century ago, President Dwight ft Eisenhower formed the President’s Council on Youth Fitness, and today Mayor Michael R. Bloombem and Michelle Obama are among those making childhood obesity a public cause. But even as virtually every state has undertaken significant school reforms, many American students are being granted little or no time in the gym. In its biennial survey of high school students across the nation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in June that nearly half said they had no physical education classes in an average week. In New York City, that number was 20.5 percent. compared with 14.4 percent a decade earlier, according to the C.D.C.

That echoed findings by New York City’s comptroller, in October, of inadequate physical education at each of the elementary schools that auditors visited. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, found just 20 percent of elementary schools in San Francisco’s system were meeting the state’s requirements: 20 minutes per day.

Jeremy Acosta. 7. ran a relay during physical education class at Public School 457 in the Bronx. Credit Librado Romero/The New York Times At Anatola Elementary School in Van Nuys, Calif., not only are there no gym teachers, but there is also no gym. The principal, Miriam King. has relied on S 15-an-hour aides to oversee onceweekly exercise regimens for her 450 students at an outside playground. “Sometimes, when it is raining, we just cancel,” Ms.. King said. In the Miami-Dade School District in Florida. physical education classes for middle school students were threatened by state legislation last year, in the face of anemic local tax collections and dropping property values. But the district’s top health educator. Jayne D. Greenberg, watched in thankful relief as a grass-roots effort mounted enough political pressure to beat back the proposed cuts. Still, Dr. Greenberg said, she has had to “double up some of the elementary physical education classes.” In East Harlem, at TAG Young Scholars, an elementary and middle school for aifled students, there was no gym teacher for elementary students, according to Patricia Saydah, whose son Mitchell Deutsch just finished the first grade there. Art teachers and guidance counselors oversaw the classes, and students were sometimes called on to demonstrate stretching, Mitchell

said. Next year threatens more hardship: One of the four schools that share TAG’s building is expanding, further straining the sole gym. Ms. Saydah said she was concerned with Mitchell’s ability to focus in class without physical activity most days. “He comes out of school and he is bouncing off the walls,” she said. Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, has proposed injecting language into the federal budget creating incentives for schools to report how much physical activity students are getting. He also asked the Government Accountability Office to look into the issue and, in February, it released a survey showing that while schools appeared more aware of the benefits of physical education, “they have reduced the amount of time spent” on such classes. Principals most frequently blame budget cuts, and in New York, they also cite pressures to devote resources to test preparation. and what one union leader called a lack of interest from the department headquarters. “There does not appear to be a promotion. or support. from the Department of Education for daily physical education in many of our high schools,” said Jeff Engel, a vice principal at Long Island City High School, in Queens, who is a member of the executive board of the principals’ union. He said that his own school provided daily physical education, but that many did not. “We have a huge obesity epidemic in the city, yet we see many of our high schools going to nondaily physical education.” According to the city comptroller’s audit, none of the 31 elementary schools that auditors visited were holding physical education classes as frequently as required: every day for kindergarten through third grade and three times a week for grades four through six, for a minimum of 120 minutes weekly; and at least 90 minutes a week for grades seven and eight. In grades 7 through 12, state guidelines call for physical education three times a week in one semester and twice a week in another.

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Kathleen Grimm, New York City’s deputy schools chancellor for operations, said the Bloornberg administration required adequate physical education in schools, but acknowledged it had work to do. Since principals face challenges in providing space and time for those classes, she said, the administration hoped to put a plan in place by summers end to provide them “better support” across all areas of education, including physical education, The department has not flied a physical education plan with the state since 1982, though state officials recommend a new one every seven years. A spokeswoman for the city schools says one vill be presented in September. Besides its value in fighting obesity, physical education has also been linked in some studies to good academic outcomes. Dr. John J. Ratey, a Harvard professor and author of “Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain” cited a 2010 study on the topic from the federal Health and Human Services Department. Vivian Yee contributed reporting. A version of this article appears in print on July II, 2012, on page A 19 of the New York edition with the headline: Gym Class Finds Itself On Sideline. Order Reprints Today’s PaperlSubscribe