Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Issues With Health in Schools
The topic of health has been a growing issue amongst schools in this country. Physical education and lunch nutrition is where the issues begin. In schools during PE classes, physical fitness tests are preformed to measure multiple things such as strength, endurance, and flexibility. However, in the past few years more and more children are failing these tests. According to Rob Stein's article Millions of Adults, Teens Fail Fitness Test, 33.6% of adolescence are in the low-fitness category. Why are so many children failing these test? The answer is the elimination of mandatory PE classes in many schools which discourages children from exercising and getting in shape. The lack of these classes is not the only issue discouraging young children from staying healthy. School lunches play a large role as well. Schools don't take into account the amount of calories they are serving someone or the type of the food they are handing out. A simply way for schools to help children with healthy eating is to start serving fruits and vegetables, using wheat bread instead of white, and serving food that isn't so high in calories. Schools help in shaping the lives of children but it should be in a positive way. Changing they way they feed children and how they educated them on healthy living and exercise is an easy way for schools to create healthier children all around our country.
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This is something that I also find very interesting and something that needs to be addressed on a larger scale. For schools to eliminate phyiscal eduaction will be horrible because to me it will send the message that not exercising and staying in shape is okay. It will allow american children to become more obesse and work out less than before they experienced it in school. Also the food in public schools is something that I hated so much when I was in school. I always hated eating it either because it tasted bad or it was so bad for me. For these reasons I packed my lunch from the time that I could do it myself. I was always the one with a salad or sandwich on wheat bread instead of gross unhealthy food they gave others.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with not getting rid of PE classes. We do need to teach kids that they need to exercise. In all honesty I also feel that school should have a break in the day, a blow off class, where students don't have to stress about getting a bad grade. I mean it cant be mentally healthy to go to school of 8 hours and only sit in a chair or walk to class.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with this phase that is going on in public schools. I even noticed it in PE classes in my high school that students would not even try in PE class. PE was mandatory, but the teachers would not be strict on people not participating in class and reward them at times. If this country wishes to become more healthy, then it has to begin in our public schools.
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