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Fast Food Nation: It keeps getting harder to be healthy. (4/3/01)

World AIDS Day 2000: AIDS strikes teens hardest (11/30/00)

It's a Loud World: It's not cool if you can't hear. (4/30/00)

NewsHour Features:

Fit for Life:
A new kind of physical education program aimed at helping children live healthier lives.
(3/22/02)

Obese Children:
Betty Ann Bowser reports on the alarming rise in childhood obesity.
(5/1/01)

For Teachers: Health and Fitness

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P.E. 4 Life

National Association for Sport and Physical Education

School Health Policies and Programs Study From the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention

Learning to be Fit
April 3, 2002

When you think of all your classes, which ones do you think might help you 10, 20 or even 30 years from now?

It's likely math, English, and science will come in handy someday, but knowing how to keep yourself healthy could be just as important.

A lot of students think gym class, known as physical education or P.E., is a waste of time, but health experts are pushing harder than ever to make daily gym class a requirement -- and a new fitness philosophy may even make it fun.

Less popular than before

Gym class used to be a lot more common - just ask your parents if they had to run around a track in uniform.

Over the past decade or two, schools have cut the time and money spent on P.E. requirements as they try to deal with increasing pressure to raise scores on standardized tests required by each state and the national government.

Only one state in the country - Illinois - requires physical education for public school students in grades K-12. Many other states do require or encourage school districts to follow P.E. standards but it is usually up to the individual district to decide how much P.E. and when.

Education for life

But P.E. is much more than playing basketball or soccer. Besides sports, many schools are also cutting back on health classes that teach important lessons about nutrition and sexuality.

And there are several studies, including one from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, showing that students 6-19 are more overweight than ever before and that physical activity tends to decrease as students grow older.

Diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure are also becoming more common.

Health experts believe that students need P.E. in school to gain an understanding of the importance of getting frequent exercise. They also learn exercises they enjoy enough to continue after graduation.

Otherwise, they might become one of the 300,000 deaths a year in the United States due to inactivity and poor diet.

A new method

Recently, the NewsHour reported on a new kind of physical education program aimed at helping students live healthier lives.

The new program is designed to offer students activities like running on treadmills, scaling the climbing wall, and using weight machines instead of team sports that might be difficult for some students.

"I like this because you get, like, more opportunities to do more exercises and work out your body in different ways and stuff," explained Carrie from Chicago.

Other students say they are less bored than they were playing dodge ball or running endless laps.

Teachers measure students' heart rate to chart their progress instead of forcing all students to run 10-minute miles or compete at the same level in each sport.

Some gym teachers also believe the more exercise students get, the higher their test scores.

"We truly feel we were a contributing factor to [higher] test scores with the brain research that says physical activity affects the brain," said Carrie's gym teacher.

The idea is for students to be active and to see that physical activity can be fun, as well as helpful in preventing obesity and bad health later in life.

-- By Samara Aberman, NewsHour Extra

What would make gym class fun? Let us know...