For America’s Youngsters, These Truly Are Fat Times
American children have a weight problem. The average 12-year-old is 11.4 pounds heavier today than a quarter-century ago. And as reporter Julie Marquis showed in a recent Times report, the root problem may have less to do with candy bars than with the confusing and contradictory messages sent by adults.
For instance, while fashion magazines favor wafer-thin supermodels, many people embrace rich diets as a sign of prosperity. And while parents may tell kids to “go out and exercise,” many also rely on baby sitters like TV and, nowadays, computers to keep kids occupied.
An ideal place to send healthier and clearer messages is the public school system. Studies show that lifelong fitness is best encouraged by involving children in physical activities early in elementary school. Unfortunately, elementary school physical education programs in California were among the first casualties of budget cutbacks begun in the early 1980s. Now, class-size reduction, generally a bonus in education, is also cutting into exercise by placing portable classrooms on playgrounds.
State schools have strayed from the rigorous physical fitness standards of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sport, established in the Eisenhower administration. Those targets were perhaps excessive; a 13-year-old girl who could do 40 sit-ups in 60 seconds was considered ideal. But the state’s so-called Physical Education Framework now places so much emphasis on “education” (“mastering the necessary movement skills”) that there is little left on the “physical.” The state should revise its standards, accrediting schools partly on whether they ask students to strive for the fitness levels established by the National Assn. for Sport and Physical Education, which emphasize moderate, healthy exercise over Olympic record-setting. But it should also close loopholes in state law that allow students to fulfill the PE requirement with golf or bowling, activities unlikely to supply the 20 minutes of daily aerobic exercise that health experts consider essential.
Ideally, California schools should implement groundbreaking fitness programs like Eat Well & Keep Moving, which Harvard’s School of Public Health designed for the Baltimore school district. Unlike initiatives confined to the blackboard and the cafeteria, Eat Well & Keep Moving expects families to play a central role. Thus it holds programs on PTA night, requests five fruit and vegetable servings daily in the home diet and assigns students math exercises that teach them to compute the grams of fat and calories in their daily meals.
In his recent book “The Fat of the Land,” Michael Fumento of the American Enterprise Institute rails against overweight Americans, whom he sees as failing to take responsibility for their own well-being. Criticizing children, however, is unlikely to solve the problem and may encourage eating disorders. Besides, children are already painfully aware of weight problems: 45% of boys and girls in the third through sixth grades believe they are too heavy.
A better course is to bring fitness awareness back into public schools and homes, not by lecturing but by shaping behavior. Families can begin with little steps like holding the mayonnaise, playing catch with the kids, limiting sugary cereals and moving the family room TV out of sight and out of mind. America may extol supermodels and super-diets, but lasting solutions, health experts say, lie in moderation: in a slow, steady and lasting transformation to good health and fit bodies.
Younger and Fatter
Percentage of young people who are overweight:
Ages 6-11
Ages 12-17
*
Note: Overweight defined by the 95th percentile of body mass index from National Health Examination Surveys II and III (1993-70).
Source: National Center for Health Statistics unpublished data via CDC.
