The Obesity issue - the role of physical education

The Obesity issue - the role of physical education

Introduction

The explosion of personal technology at the turn of the 21st century has been attended by increases in sedentary lifestyles and unprecedented levels of obesity in our nation's youth (17% of U.S. children aged 6-19 are obese). In response, physical educators at all levels across the country are again heeding the call to return to the profession's historical roots, which were originally grounded in the fields of medicine and public health. Founded in 1885 by physicians concerned with the ill effects of urbanization and industrialization, the American Association for the Advancement of Physical Education (AAAPE, the forerunner of the contemporary American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, AAHPERD), was led by prominent physicians of the time, including Drs. William Anderson, Edward Hitchcock, and Dudley A. Sargent. Warning of the health risks associated with the transformation of America from a rural-agrarian land to urban-industrial country at the turn of the 19th century, Sargent, in 1904, wrote that “the problem is to retain our acquired health, strength, and power under the conditions imposed by modern progress … this advancement has resulted in the fact that it is possible to earn a living at the present time by the use of a very few muscles and faculties” (National Association for Sport and Physical Education, 2006).

Prophetic indeed was Sargent, whose voice has been heard anew by modern-day physical educators and other professionals concerned with the health and fitness of the nation's youth. In returning to the founders' intent, three recent major reform efforts are providing students with increased opportunities for education both of and through the physical, which, in view of the national epidemic of obesity and sedentary lifestyles, are more essential now than at any point in history. The purpose of this entry is to identify, describe, and delineate those reform efforts and their impact on the field of physical education at the beginning of the 21st century. Computers, video games, and television are often selected to the exclusion of recreational activities that burn calories, whereas physical education is increasingly eliminated or downsized in schools due to liability concerns or increased emphasis on classroom activities to enhance standardized testing scores.

Obesity now appears to be increasing in every country that has been surveyed. Migration, urbanization, and affluence, coupled with the Americanization of food selections and eating habits in other countries, have been suggested as dominant, large-scale, environmental factors. In the United States, the pervasiveness of the toxic environment is apparent from even a superficial examination of the strategies of food marketing. Fast-food restaurants offer options to bigger size one's meals, inducing even greater consumption of meals already high in fat content (Hellison, 2003).

Reform No. 1: Standards-Based Physical Education

Published first in 1995 and then revised in 2004 by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE, an association of AAHPERD), Moving Into the Future: National Standards for Physical Education provided physical education professionals with their first nationally ...