Obesity in Children
...ing school to meet even the minimal sixty minutes of daily physical activity they require. Most schools do not take physical and health education as serious and vital subjects in a child’s education (Preboth, 2000). They focus on academic subjects and neglect the importance and benefits of physical activity. Children spend nearly 1260 hours per year in school for approximately thirteen years of their lives. Yet, students only participate in physical education about once or twice a week for about an hour each time. Although one hour is reserved for physical education, students are only actually physically active for about one third of the hour. “… one study found the average child in 30-minute (physical education) classes to be vigorously active for only two minutes.” ( McKenzie, 1999, p.18) Many schools are removing physical education classes. The cut is so severe that nearly seventy-five percent of students in high school do not have physical education classes in their schedules. As a consequence, many children and adolescents are becoming extremely inactive and slightly to moderately obese (Cullotta, 2000). Believe it or not, many public schools, and the legislators who determine many of their policies are in fact guilty of promoting unhealthy behaviors among students, either through inadequate physical and health education programs or through nutritionally unsound cafeteria menus. There have been decreases in both mandatory and elective physical education courses from Kindergarten to grade twelve. Having active classes appears to be extremely significant because physical education sometimes is the only opportunity for children to engage in physical activities throughout the entire week. Children lack the proper physical education they need in order to understand the importance of physical activities and energy expenditure. Without any involvement from adults, children have a very limited understanding of the concept of physical activity and health education. A study conducted by Stewart G. Trost et al supports this notion (Trost, Morgan, Saunders, Felton, Ward, Pate, 2000). Their study appraised fourth-grade students’ understanding of the concept of physical activity. They had three conditions of which the students were randomly assigned to. The control group consisted of forty five students who did not receive any instructions about physical activities. Forty students consisted the experimental group who watched a five minute video exemplifying physical activity. The other experimental group consisted of forty two students who received verbal instructions about physical activity. The students finished a checklist containing seventeen questions about their understanding of physical activity. The results of their study verify the concept that children require the assistance and wisdom of adults to comprehend the issues behind physical activities (Trost, 2000). The students in the control group did not perform as well as the students in the experimental groups. Those who absorbed the information through the video performed the best in the checklist. Their r...