Silva,
Martha
Professor
Martin
English
114 B
23
April 2012
Get Up and Move
Over the years, childhood obesity
has been skyrocketing, causing a large amount of life threatening diseases, which then lead to
deaths in the United States. Obesity has
been one of the easiest medical conditions to recognize, however, it has been
one of the most difficult ones to treat. Although, one might see physical
education as a joke, a class to get an easy “A” in, and a class that where no
one does any physical exercise at all, I believe that making physical education
mandatory from elementary school all throughout high school, would play a big
part in solving the increasing childhood obesity rate that we see in the United
States. If nothing else has been working
all these years, then it is time for something drastic, for our next
generations’ sake.
According to The American Academy of
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, between 16 and 33 percent of children and
adolescents are obese, meaning they weigh more than 10 percent of what they are
supposed to weigh for their age and height.
One of the most important causes of obesity, is lack of exercise. Most schools do not even have gyms, so the
place where kids spent about 40 hours a week, they just sit, eat, and go home,
with no exercise what so ever. In the
article, “Critical mass crisis: child obesity”, writer Mark Fainaru-Wada,
explains that with the increased interest in video games and receding area of
physical education in schools, childhood obesity has become a nation-wide
problem with no end in sight unless something is done in the schools. Across the country, only 3.8 percent of
elementary school, 7.9 percent of middle schools, and 2.1 percent of high
schools provide daily physical education.
Forty-six percent of high school kids that were surveyed for a CDC
survey were not attending any physical education classes.
I have seen, as a current college
student, that my elementary school and high school were not trying hard enough
to keep students active and moving. In
my elementary school, we were not forced to do any physical activity, we had
recess and lunch, and our own play areas to play, but we could just sit down on
the benches if we did not want to play.
In high school, only two years of physical education is required to
graduate, and my teachers did not care about whether we had real physical
exercise or not. We could run around the
track, or we could walk around the track, and a lot of people just sat down on
the benches, because they knew that as long as they came to class, they would
pass. However, I believe that my middle
school did a pretty good job in making us do physical activities, while in
physical education. We would run seven
laps every day we were on the track, without walking, and then we would have to
play a different sport every day, such as flag football, softball, volleyball,
etc. When it was our days to be in the
gym we would do sets of sit ups, push ups, curl ups, jumping jacks, and other
stuff. After that we would play indoor
sports, such as basketball, badminton, and hockey. My middle school years are when I lost a lot
of weight, because I was considered obese in elementary school. I did not gain that much weight during high
school because I joined a dance team after not being required to have physical
education. However, I have noticed that
since I have started college, I have been gaining weight and rapidly. I would want to see at least one class of
physical education required in our general education classes. My sister is in elementary school right now,
and in her school, they have to run laps every morning as a class in a small
track, which I think is great. What the
principal does is the class that has ran the most laps for the semester, gets a
trophy and get to be the winners for that semester. I believe that this is a great idea for
elementary school students because children love competition and they would do
anything to be number one. The principal
has also banned junk food to be entered in the school and banned vendors to
sell junk food outside of the school.
Although many people are against
reinforcing physical education, I believe that physical education should be the
starting point where students could develop healthy lifestyles. One might say that an individual has rights
to their own body, but with elementary school kids and middle school kids,
having rights to their own body means eating junk food in the morning, day, and
night. If children are not forced to be
involved in physical education, then they would not practice healthy exercise
throughout their adulthood. Also, one
might also say that physical education programs are rarely appropriate to keep
students healthy, I believe that, from my personal experience, that there are a
lot of programs out there, and we can do more to have quality physical
education programs. If physical
education would be voluntary, of course most students would not choose it. P.E. teachers should motivate students to be
active and to not look at it as a passing grade in the class, but as a class
that would be taken with them into adulthood.
Just as there are tests that make sure academic teachers are doing their
job, the same should be done with physical education teachers. Just because it is physical education and not
an academic class, it is not treated as an important part of education. They should follow a curriculum with what
students have to accomplish throughout the year, and be tested every year as
well, to make sure they are exercising and getting the most they can out of
physical education.
There are so many diseases that are
linked to obesity, and these diseases are starting to appear in younger and
younger children. Childhood obesity has
tripled during the past 30 years and it is not decreasing at all. Childhood obesity has both long term effects
and immediate affects that should not be taken lightly. Children who are obese are likely to have
risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as high blood pressure or high
cholesterol. They are also more likely
to have pre-diabetes, which is a condition in which blood glucose levels
indicate high risk for developing diabetes.
They could also have a hard time breathing and sleeping, and also have
low self-esteem. Some long term effects
are heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, several types of cancer,
osteoarthritis, and countless more.
Physical education teachers, in addition to getting kids to do exercise,
is getting them to be aware of the consequences of not eating healthy and not
exercising, what healthy living is, and what are easy ways to actually live
healthy.
Childhood obesity has been
increasing for a long time now, and we have seem to be doing minimal things
about it. What I believe we need is
mandatory physical education from elementary school, all the way through high
school. This solution would have
physical activity in students’ daily routines and will help them practice
exercising further in their lives.
