Social and Cultural Foundations of American Education/Educational Change/Health and Physical Education

In an age where video games, the Internet, television, and fast food hamburgers permeate every tier of American society, it becomes increasingly more important for Americans to be aware of their food choices and to make a concerted effort to incorporate more physical activity in their day-to-day lives. However, the increasing numbers of obese men, women, and children in our society suggest that Americans are unaware of how unhealthy habits will affect them or perhaps Americans lack the motivation or know-how to fix these habits. We, as educators, are in a unique position. Our schools can provide health knowledge and exposure to physical activity by integrating them into the curriculum. The benefits will not only help our students maintain a healthy lifestyle but also help them academically.

The Facts of Life…
The benefits of a healthy lifestyle, including regular exercise, reach well beyond maintaining a healthy weight. The very workings of our body, both physical and mental, are affected by the diet and exercise choices we make everyday. The organization, Trust for America’s Health, determined in their 2007 report that, “Twenty-two states experienced an increase [in adult obesity rates] for the second year in a row; no states decreased. A new public opinion survey featured in the report finds 85 percent of Americans believe that obesity is an epidemic.” (Trust for America’s Health, 2007, paragraph 1) How do we address this problem as teachers? What can be done to keep America healthy?

By teaching our children about their health and exposing them to physical activity, educators may hold an important key to changing the future health of America. Forty-one million kids participate in organized, extracurricular youth sports like soccer, basketball, and lacrosse. (Trickey, 2006) These kids help to balance the rate of obesity in American children but the rate is still alarmingly high. “The rates of overweight children (ages 10 to 17) ranged from a high of 22.8 percent in Washington, D.C. to a low of 8.5 percent in Utah.” (Trust for America’s Health, 2007, paragraph 3) However, organized sports can be expensive to play and therefore, a number of parents cannot afford for their children to participate. This is one reason why it is essential that schools incorporate physical activity in the curriculum.

Let’s Get Physical (Education, that is!)
Physical activity is important. Schools have a vested interest and responsibility to provide for the well-being of their students. The following list includes a few of the most important physical reasons why we as educators should be concerned about the health of our students:


 * “Regular physical activity is associated with enhanced health and reduced risk for all-cause mortality.” (CDC, 2001, paragraph 2)
 * “Lack of physical activity, as well as dietary factors contribute to an estimated 300,000 deaths in the United States each year.” (Seefeldt, 1998, p.117)
 * “Beyond the effects on mortality, physical activity has multiple health benefits, including reducing the risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, selected cancers, and musculoskeletal conditions.” (CDC, 2001, paragraph 2)

Our job as educators is to teach our students knowledge and life skills that will help them in the future. Teachers should be alarmed at the increase in the number of obese children. “First, overweight and obese students will inevitably miss more school days for medical reasons. These absences will mean that the students will have to catch up on material, increasing their risk of not fully understanding it and slowing down the speed at which teachers can advance to new topics. Second, when these students are in class, many will lack the energy to sustain the concentration needed to process new information.” (Yaussi, 2005, p. 1) Teaching, encouraging, and promoting physical activity is not outside the realm of the classroom.

As educators we are providing a service for the American public. As a result, we should be aware of what parents want their children to gain from their education. “Not surprisingly, nearly all (99%) adults with children in the household (aged 6-17) feel that it is important for the child to be physically fit, with 80% believing this to be extremely important.” (National Association for Sport and Physical Education, 2000, p. 5) The National Parent Teacher Organization (PTA) has a Resolution posted on their website urging local PTAs to “… support daily physical education programs as an integral part of children’s education.” (PTA, n.d.)  Parents not only want their children to be physically fit but they want them to engage in physical activity at school.

This shared concern for student well-being among parents and educators serves as the basis for a collaboration to provide physical education for students at school. There are professionals within in a school, including physical educators, school nurses, and guidance counselors, that can help ensure that students’ physical education objectives are being met.

If effective physical education is achieved in our schools, the benefits can span not only a student’s physical health but also their academics. “Research indicates that physical activity enhances brain function and produces many cognitive and physiological benefits.” (Tremarche, Robinson, Graham, 2001, paragraph 4) Researchers created a study in two Massachusetts elementary schools to measure the impact of increased quality Physical Education time on Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) standardized scores. They gave the MCAS test to 311 fourth graders in two comparable Southeastern Massachusetts communities below the state’s average per pupil expenditure within a two month period between April and May 2001. The participants were tested in Math and English and Language Arts (ELA). “Results of the study revealed that the mean ELA MCAS score for School 1 and the mean ELA MCAS score for School 2 were significantly different…In conclusion, students who received more hours of quality physical education per school year scored higher in the ELA subject area of the MCAS standardized test.” (Tremarche, Robinson, Graham, 2001, paragraph 1) If the results of this study are true and apply to other schools in other areas, then physical education has the added benefit of increasing the important standardized tests scores associated with No Child Left Behind.

Another study conducted in the state of Virginia explored the hypothesis that reducing the amount of time in related arts periods (art, music, P.E., etc.) would raise standardized test scores. Researchers collected data from 547 Virginia elementary school principals who completed a survey indicating the time specialists taught art, music, and physical education in their schools. After controlling for cultural and social differences between the schools, “… findings from the study do not support the notion that a reduced time allocation to art, music, and physical education is related to higher test scores.” (Wilkins, Graham, Westfall, Fraser, Tembo, 2003) Therefore, reducing the amount of time students spend in related arts, classes that according to brain-based research are believed to enhance a student’s academics, does not produce higher test scores.

Health is Academic
Physical education is just a part of the larger health curriculum that should be present within our schools. The two work hand-in-hand when they include both the health benefits of physical activity and behavioral skills such as decision making, planning, problem solving, as well as enhancing student self esteem and confidence. (Seefeldt, 1998, p.128) Also, providing students with the knowledge to obtain healthy eating habits helps in promoting a future filled with physically fit youth in America.

Another important aspect of health comes in recognizing who influences children’s eating behaviors. It is a common misconception that parents have powerful influence over children’s development of food preference. Very little correlation exists between parent and child preferences. However, parents do control what foods are available in the cupboards, and should make an effort to promote healthy foods by making them easily accessible and readily available for children. If children are not inheriting their tastes from their family members, then where are they learning their food preferences? The answer: from their peers. Evolutionary biology makes two suggestions as to why peer influence is more powerful than adult influence in shaping food preference (Cooke, Wardle, &Bigson, 2003). 1.)	“Young children’s reluctance to sample new foods, most notably vegetables, is biologically wired” (Lumeng 76). This is linked to the concept that it is advantageous for human species’ survival for the young to be reluctant to eat unfamiliar plant life, due to the fact that plants can often be poisonous.  Therefore, children determine what to eat by observing others around them. 2.)	“Modeling eating behavior after peers may provide young children with some survival advantage” (Lumeng 76). Nutritional needs of young children are more similar to those of others in the same age group than to those of full-grown adults. An example of this comes from recognizing that children’s bodies are smaller and are less able to protect against infection, such as in the case of consuming iron; quantities which are essential for adults are toxic for children.

Health contributes to a student’s academics. “An optimally healthy student is more likely than a less healthy student to succeed in school.” (Wooley and Rubin, 2006, p.63) School health programs promote healthy eating, getting sufficient sleep, and engaging in physical activity to achieve optimal health and thus good grades. Wooley and Rubin also suggest that physical fitness, social-emotional health, and academics are inseparable. Teaching students to be emotionally healthy allows students to “… express a wide range of feelings in culturally acceptable and effective ways and thus[,] function well in the classroom and in life.” (Wooley and Rubin, 2006, p.63) With an estimated one in four students in the United States ages 10-17 at extreme risk for drug use, engaging in early, unprotected intercourse, participating in dangerous and criminal activities, experiencing depression or post-traumatic stress, or dropping out of school, it becomes apparent that health education is needed to inform our students of the risks and hopefully deter them from becoming a statistic. (Wooley and Rubin, 2006, p.64) The optimal result of effective health education should be healthy students that are functional, well-behaved adults in the future.

What Can We Do?
We, as educators, can help to promote a healthy student body that will result in healthy, future adults. It is through the cooperation of parents, teachers, administrators, school boards, and politicians that we can provide successful physical and health education. By providing a quality curriculum through all levels of schooling, students can benefit physically, emotionally, socially, and academically.

But providing for the health and physical fitness of our youth is not just the job of the Health and P.E. teachers. Sarah Yaussi in her article, The Obesity Epidemic: How Non-P.E. Teachers Can Improve the Health of Their Students, suggests that regular classroom teachers can also help directly in the creation of healthy students within their classroom. We, as teachers, should serve as a role model for our students and exhibit healthy habits to our students. This includes using our classrooms as a place to “… simultaneously promote hands-on learning and physical activity.” (Yaussi, 2005, p. 1) Hiba Shublak, a fitness expert, has shown teachers an activity that can be used at the middle school and high school level to teach math skills through hip hop moves. Students create dance moves in different multiple counts or beats, thus utilizing math skills, and then show their dance to the class. The students then participate in a writing activity to reflect on the activity. (Yaussi, 2005, p. 1) Physical activity and academic material then occur simultaneously within a classroom. Through our creativity, we can create our own activities that involve our students getting out of their chairs to learn as well as keeping our students healthy.

Some students may not care about physical education, or even their physical well being. As their educators, we need to explain why physical education is important. Many high school students come to believe that becoming a physical education teacher is a joke. They think that since P.E. classes never have a text book, they aren’t learning anything important. They don’t realize that the period they spend in P.E. could be the only thing keeping them from being extremely overweight or obese. Physical education classes might even be the only physical activity that some children get. It seems that the “education” part of these classes is often forgotten. If the educators would explain to the students why they are doing jumping jacks and that jogging around the track regularly could save their lives, the students might be more likely to participate. In an article regarding youth fitness, pro football player Eli Manning was quoted as saying “It amazes me that physical education isn’t a requirement in some schools. These kids need physical activity in their lives for health reasons” (Crouse). Maybe if more students heard this type of thing from their teachers, there wouldn’t be as much of an obesity epidemic.

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