Physical Education and Obesity - Let’s Be Careful What We Wish For

Last month we reported the recent publication of an entire volume of The Elementary School Journal devoted to "Elementary School Physical Education." Contributors included many of the most respected leaders in today's physical education. Unfortunately, only article abstracts are accessible online. For those inclined, an investment in the paper edition of the journal is highly recommended.

Among the 11 articles, a philosophical perspective by Pennsylvania State University Professor R. Scott Kretchmar particularly caught my eye. In it, Kretchmar notes that increased national attention to worsening obesity and its association with physical inactivity might appear to bode well for physical education. He then continues to warn us that this association may prove to be a mixed blessing. His argument (or at least my interpretation of his far more eloquently presented thesis) is that we risk ignoring many of the most beneficial outcomes of quality physical education if we reduce our subject matter to simply being a means to countering worsening obesity. In fact, if we view physical education's purpose as a way to achieving any clearly identifiable, or measurable end, we are missing its truly extraordinary value.

Not long ago it seems, some of the greatest thinkers in our profession debated vigorously the mission of physical education: Was it an education of the physical, or an education through the physical? Over the past century we've gone through periods in which one or the other perspective seemed to gain advantage.

Early on, sports, and games, especially as inherited from the 19th century British public school tradition, were justified as a means to build character rather than healthy bodies. But then, many of the earliest American pioneer physical educators led the profession along a different path, promoting the health connection of exercise and physical activity. During the wars of the 20th century physical education was seen as a way to improve the preparedness of our armed forces. And when fitness comparisons between European and American children revealed US kids to be inferior, developing physical fitness become a national theme for all school physical education programs.

Over the past half century we've seen ebb and flow among differing sometimes contradicting curriculum themes: Skill development, play and movement concepts, social and personal development, adventure education, physical fitness, and others. Team sports, once the foundation of every physical education program, have seen reductions in favor of individual, lifetime, or recreational activities. What to do has become more and more confusing. Now, on top of this, our nation faces the threat of worsening obesity: a crisis with health consequences, that left unresolved, will undermine the social, political, and economic fabric of life as we know it today. Which brings me back to Scott Kretchmar's timely article.

It is tempting for physical educators to see our subject matter as the solution to children's obesity. After all, if children do nothing else, most of them at least get some regular physical activity during about 10 years of required school physical education. Unfortunately, while some physical activity is certainly better than none, the physical education profession alone cannot solve the obesity crisis.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't try our very best to get kids active, and help them to understand the value of physical activity and healthy eating. But the truth is that inactive lifestyles and unhealthy diets, left ignored by families, communities, media, and some kind of legislation, mean that the best efforts of our profession to turn the tide of obesity will not succeed.

This thought returns me to the second point of Kretchmar's article. In brief, he recommends that the "joy-focused, play oriented mission [of physical education] receive priority attention." As Kretchmar points out, in reality - and despite the best intentions of many physical educators - it is frustratingly difficult to serve these two contradictory masters.

Most physical educators know this conflict well. It is a daily puzzle. How is it possible to impact children's obesity with only two 30-minute physical education lessons a week? How can we in truth develop a broad range of movement skills in classes of 30 or more students who we only see for less than 36 hours a year? Is even an hour of daily physical education enough? And with the knowledge that the intensity, duration, and frequency of physical activity do more than anything to immediately impact student health, how can we successfully help students experience the joy of movement in our physical education classes while urging them to meet target heart rates?

Well, if Kretchmar is correct perhaps we need to reflect more on the possibility that the joy of movement will likely sustain children's participation in physical activity long after compulsion is removed. Put another way, maybe if we can change their minds their bodies will follow? If so, the legacy we will leave with our students may indeed change the lifestyle habits that lie at the foundation of today's obesity crisis.

What do you think? Please share your thoughts on the NASPE Forum.

Steve Jefferies, Publisher pelinks4u