December 11, 2001
State
Youths Flunk Fitness Exam
Health: Of 1 million California students
tested, just 23% were deemed physically fit. Officials say schools lack an
emphasis on PE instruction.
By DUKE
HELFAND, Times Staff Writer
Nearly
80% of California adolescents are out of shape, with whites and Asians
leaner and fitter than Latinos and African Americans, according to a
statewide study released Monday.
The gap mirrors economic and academic gulfs between the groups, and it
reflects persistent research documenting higher rates of unhealthful
diets, obesity and related diseases, including diabetes, among low-income
groups.
The fitness results are drawn from more than 1 million students statewide
who took physical tests last spring-running
a mile, doing push-ups and pull-ups, among other things.
Leading health experts believe the results bear directly on academic
achievement. To improve scores in reading, writing and math, minority
students must improve their physical fitness and diets with help from
parents and schools, researchers and state officials believe.
“There is a tie between healthy minds and healthy bodies,” said Debbie
Vigil, a consultant with the California Department of Education, which
released the fitness results. “Kids are probably going to be more
sluggish in the classroom if they are unfit.”
Health educators say too many students eat junk food and spend excessive
amounts of time in front of televisions, computers or video games.
The lax habits come at a time when schools are retreating from physical
fitness as they concentrate on teaching basic skills and raising test
scores.
The size of PE classes in California reaches 60 students or more on some
campuses, and in elementary schools, classroom teachers with minimal
experience often teach the subject. Moreover, in many areas of the state,
school overcrowding-made
worse by efforts to reduce class sizes-has
sharply limited playground space.
Individual schools conducted the study, using fitness standards developed
by the nonprofit Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research in Dallas. The
fitness results were collected for fifth-, seventh- and ninth-graders. To
be deemed fit, the students had to meet minimum levels in six categories,
including aerobic capacity, flexibility and upper body strength. Students
also had their body fat measured.
Overall, the study painted a troubling picture of the health of
California’s schoolchildren. Among the findings:
-
Just
23% of all the tested students were physically fit, slightly higher
than when test results were first reported two years ago.
-
Thirty-two
percent of white seventh-graders were in shape, as were 34% of Asian
seventh-graders. By contrast, just 19% of Latinos and 19% of African
Americans were considered fit.
-
Thirty-five
percent of African American ninth-graders had too much body fat to be
healthy, as did 38% of Latino ninth-graders. By contrast, 28% of white
children, and 20% of Asian students, fell into that category.
Of
particular concern to state officials were the results for aerobic
capacity, an indicator of how well the heart and lungs work. More than
half of ninth-graders statewide did not meet the threshold for aerobic
health when asked to run or walk a mile as fast as possible.
California requires elementary school students to have 200 minutes of
physical activity every 10 school days, or about 20 minutes a day. For
grades seven through 12, the requirement is 400 minutes every 10 school
days. At the high school level, most students take PE for only two of the
four years.
The state’s requirements are average compared with other states but fall
short of what leading health and fitness experts recommend.
Federal guidelines suggest that students through high school receive at
least 60 minutes of physical activity a day.
But schools, facing intense pressure to improve academically, are
reluctant to carve out that much time for PE.
“A lot of schools don’t even count PE in the overall [grade point
average],” said Curtis Garner, chairman of the physical education
department at Fillmore High School, where only 5.4% of the ninth-graders
were considered physically fit. “What kind of message does that send?”
At 118th Street Elementary School in South Los Angeles, teachers are so
focused on lifting test scores that they don’t always have the time to
teach physical education. It’s a matter of priorities at a school where
almost all of the children are poor enough to receive subsidized lunches
and a majority are still learning English.
“Sometimes we don’t have the equipment or the right facilities in the
yard,” said Francisco Gonzalez, the school principal. “If you want to
do aerobics, you need a boom box. Sometimes we lack the resources to do
that.”
Fitness results for schools, districts, counties and the state are
available at the California Department of Education web site, http://www.cde.ca.gov/statetests/pe/pe.html. |