Why does the media pick on school lunches and not the fact that schools offer very little PE for children?

While exercise is very important, i think diet is slightly more important, in that if you put toxins into your body, exercise is not going to cancel that out, the best starting point is to eat healthy first and foremost.

I agree with you – both are huge concerns for me – I used to work for the NYC Dept of Health in the capacity of training elementary school teachers to do physical activities in their classrooms because they’ve had their PE programs cut and the disparities in which neighborhoods get affected and which don’t are pretty clear – if I were ever a school administrator, nutrition and physical activity would never suffer ahead of anything else – both have been linked to better test scores and healthier children but I hail from the world of public health and am aware of that which others are too quick to dismiss. We know and recommend at least an hour of active movement for young children yet it’s not available to them and then we wonder how to circumvent the obesity problem becoming an issue for younger and younger children.

Probably because PE isn’t really about exercise, it’s about pummeling the new kid with balls and standing around for 45 minutes waiting for your turn to spend 4 minutes climbing a rope. Activity is important, but I think PE hasn’t been about actual movement for quite some time now. You’d probably have to replace the entire PE model in order to change that.

I chose to blame the parents for not limiting their kids tv/computer/gaming time and instead kick their little behinds outside where they belong. For the record my 6th grader has been kicking out 1 mile runs as part of gym class since school started this year.

@Cruiser that’s right, i don’t understand how anyone can move the blame away from parents to schools….since when did schools take over parenting responsibilities? And if the latter is the case, it’s a very sad state of affairs….

@NaturallyMe I’m pretty sure the switch happened at least 20 years ago.

@papayalily Also a very good point, agreed.
@Cruiser Parents, too, should be aware of requirements.

@Cruiser and @NaturallyMe I’m not big about pushing the blame away from parents, but not all children are growning up in nice neighborhoods with one stay at home parent to watch over the kid. Most kids either have one working parent or 2 parents who have to work to make ends meet.
Kids today are left home unsupervised because it cost too much for a sitter or they stay in a after school day care till 6 pm. After school day cares generally just offer a place for kids to sit quietly and do their homework. Then its off to home and eat dinner (or buy dinner) and then its too dark to go out and play.
As a society we can’t change what is going on at home but we can change what happens in the schools.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I agree. I can’t help but see the benefits it will serve in society. As more children become obese it means long term health problems. And I also remember when I was back in school children being able to settle down and concentrate on school lessons because they didn’t feel restless after PE.
@papayalily Well when I had PE, we actually did real exercises for at least a half hour and then we would engage in some sport related game for the next half hour. The class would be split in two and we would engage in two different sports games. Volley ball on one half and basketball on the other, or batgammin, or even bowling.

@Pandora Do you mind if I ask how long ago this was? And bowling, while fun!, isn’t really a good cardiovascular exercise.

@papayalily Back in the 70’s. Bowling was more for the people who didn’t want to exercise much after the first half hour. Our gym teachers were brutal for the first 30 minutes. We would rotate teams every day so you didn’t get bowling all the time unless you were a child who had health issues that didn’t allow you to participate in anything harsh.

@Pandora I understand your reasoning as I see it all up and down my block but it all comes down to a matter of choices. I work all day and my jaw doesn’t stop working when I come home and can still say “go outside and play”. That being said I am a big believer in PE and recess as kids need t blow off steam to stay focused and it should be the last thing ever cut from a schools budget.

@Pandora Huh. Well, it stopped being that way by at least the 90s.

@papayalily I know. My kids where lucky that we did live in a nice neighborhoods and I was able to allow them to go out and expend some energy. But I did see a decline in PE classes for them as they entered high school. Half hours classes that just were mostly health classes with no activities or maybe a run around a track for 15 minutes. They only had to take two semesters of it in high school and was considered and extra curricular activity.

When I was in elementary school, we had P.E. infrequently (maybe once a month or once a week… I’ve kind of blocked the experience out) and it was always a nightmarish experience for me. Middle school and high school were slightly better… but not by much. I think the class setting needs a major revamp and that kids should be given more options (I would have loved to have taken a more yoga-type course instead of squirming while all the other kids got picked for softball and street hockey.)

The food was an absolute disgrace in my school district. I brought lunch every day from daycare until… well, I still bring lunch to university to save money, but that’s somewhat different. In primary school, even looking at the slop on my friends’ trays made me gag. The men and women working in the cafeteria were sweet and lovely people, but the food our system mandated to serve was awful.

I have friends from other districts who said their food was not only nutritious but they looked forward to eating it every day. Depends on where you’re from, I guess.

Hm….my kids’ school lunches aren’t stellar, but they aren’t horrible either. They always include veggies and often have fresh fruit as well. Whole grains are another common menu item. The kids have choices between the “hot” lunch and an alternative, like sandwiches or yogurt with cheese and whole wheat crackers. There are no soda machines, and cookies or ice cream can be purchased separately (not on the child’s lunch card, so the parents have to send money) once or twice a week.

In grade school, the kids here have PE once or twice a week, but get recess every day. They go outside unless the weather is bad. In middle school, they have it every other day. Schools are under a lot of pressure to perform at a certain level when it comes to standardized testing, so I can see how PE would come to be less of a priority. We don’t use the after school program, but I’ve seen how it works. The kids all go to the gym. There are a few tables set up for kids to do their homework, but the rest of the space is used for kids to run around and play. One of the reasons we moved to this town was because of the quality of the school system. I realize not all schools are created equal.

But honestly, parents should be making sure their kids get off the couch or away from the computer and just run around outside. Take the time to sign the kid up for sports or just get to the playground. Go hiking, ride bikes together, swim at the local pool if you have one. If the parents make exercise and activity a priority, so will the kids.

Schools will never be perfect, but parents can help pick up the slack in many ways.

@muppetish Yeah, the insane competition ruined it for me, too. To really have a chance, you’d have to design a program that doesn’t pit kids against each other.

Bowling is a great way to earn a living. Remember bowling for dollars for gosh sakes?
Get ‘em off the computer, restrict their cell phone time, cut their video games out, take them to the beach or the park, motivate them at home to exercise and get off their lazy duffs.

Muscles prefer to relax as opposed to being used strenuously. And muscles remember. Train their muscles to like a workout.

I think there needs to be a multi-pronged approach. Less junk food and sedentary time at home, more recess, PE and healthier food at school. (Perhaps supervisied afterschool playgrounds could obviate somewhat against children having to be indoors because parents are at work.) We need to get much smarter about health throughout society and both schools and parents need to be addressing these issues.

I agree that both should be addressed – but I think that people pick on the lunch issue because so many of the contracts schools make are with corporations that are exploiting the children’s need for daily nutrition and using that to hook them on sugar and salts. Not having P.E. programs may be a budget issue – but the lunches are often (NOT always) a mixture of both budget issues AND corporate exploitation of children – which just seems so, so much dirtier and should.