Classroom Fitness
A Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) found that America’s young children may not be getting enough vigorous physical exercise through their schools’ physical education (PE) programs. The observations conducted in PE classes provided insight into the amount and types of PE programs offered to 814 third graders at 648 U.S. schools across the country. Observers tracked the activity of a child as he or she participated in school PE classes.
On average, children had 2.1 PE classes per week, totaling 68.7 minutes. Only 5.9 percent of the children had PE five times a week; 2.6 percent, four times a week; 16 percent, three times a week; 45.3 percent, twice a week; and 30.2 percent, once a week. Of the average time children spent in class, students engaged in only about 4.8 minutes of vigorous physical activity, and 11.9 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity.
“Exercise improves learning on three levels: first, it optimizes your mind-set to improve alertness, attention, and motivation; second, it prepares and encourages nerve cells to bind to one another, which is the cellular basis for logging in new information; and third, it spurs the development of new nerve cells from stem cells in the hippocampus.” In SPARK, John J. Ratey, M.D
The study found that boys spent a greater percentage of class time in moderate to vigorous physical activity (38.3 percent) than did girls (35.6 percent). In addition to calling for more vigorous PE for all children, the authors also called for PE classes to encourage girls to engage in moderate to vigorous physical activity.
Dave Hubbard has developed a great presentation on Classroom Fitness. Dave teaches teachers how easy it is to fit fitness into their daily classroom activity, helping kids to learn the positive effects of exercise, while increasing their attention and brain function.
