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Physical
education urged to help fight child obesity By
Shari Roan, Los Angeles Times Physical education
class has long suffered from an image problem. Children often deem jumping jacks
and chin-ups boring or goofy; parents wonder if the time would be better spent
on reading skills. But a new study makes a strong case that physical education may be the single best strategy for curbing the United States' growing child obesity problem — at least among girls. In the first study to evaluate the effect of P.E. programs on kindergartners and first-graders, researchers found that increasing P.E. time by one hour per week could lead to a significant decline in body mass index, a measure of body fat, among girls. They projected that providing five hours of
P.E. per week to kindergartners — close to the recommended amount — would
produce a 43 percent reduction in the prevalence of girls that age who are
overweight. About 10 percent of kindergarten girls are overweight now, but that
would decline to about 5.8 percent with at least five hours of P.E. per week. The same effect on body mass index was not
observed in boys, possibly because more boys are active at that age and a larger
percentage of 5- and 6-year-old girls are sedentary. The effects of P.E. on
boys' weight might be observed at later ages, suggested Rand Corp. researchers
who conducted the study. Wide variations in P.E. time were found among
schools participating in the study, with kindergartners averaging only 57
minutes per week of P.E. and first-graders receiving about 65 minutes per week. "What is exciting about this study is
that P.E. works for a large number of children," said Nancy Chockley,
president of the National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation, a
Washington, D.C., nonprofit group that funded the study. "Helping these
kids manage their weight from an early age is so important." The research was conducted from U.S.
Department of Education data as part of a broader, long-term study of 11,192
children from 1,000 public and private schools who entered kindergarten in 1998.
Results from the study are published in three medical journals; the P.E. arm of
the study appears in the September issue of the American Journal of Public
Health. P.E. has become a low priority in many schools
as administrators struggle to raise test scores and meet minimum standards for
academic achievement. But schools are one of the few places where child obesity
can be addressed on a large scale, Chockley says. According to the federal
government, the prevalence of obesity among children has doubled since 1980, and
it has tripled in teens. More than 15 percent of children ages 6 to 19 were
overweight in 2000. "Schools are clearly burdened, and we
can't leave (the obesity problem) all to the schools," she said. "But
schools are where the children are, and they have to be part of the
solution." The study also examined whether obesity
affects behavior and academic performance. Kindergarten girls who are overweight
were found to be significantly more likely to have behavior problems such as
anxiety, low self-esteem and acting out. Overweight children were also more
likely to score lower on reading and math tests. But more research is needed to determine whether obesity affects school performance and behavior or whether other factors are at work, says Ashlesha Datar, an associate economist at Rand and lead author of the studies. "Our research suggests it's the quality of the home environment that is the most important predictor of school outcomes," she said. |