Get up and Move!

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.