countries with the least amount of obese people, in the years 2000 to 2002, there is a lot of work to be done in creating a healthier country for us to live in. While eating healthy and many lifestyle changes go into losing weight, and avoiding obesity, physical education in schools is where children learn their basis of knowledge about living healthy lives. Citizenship
A very simple way to help raise awareness of the problems with physical education in the United States is by writing e-mails or letters to show that it is an important issue to fix. The American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation & Dance (AAHPERD) is the organization that sets the national standards for physical education and by sending them an e-mail expressing your feelings about the current standards it will help to convince them to address the problems. The President of the United States is also someone who has a large influence on the amount of physical education in the nation’s public schools. By contacting the White House, it would be an even larger step towards making the changes because of the amount of power that the President has, and the fact that he would even have some sort of power over the AAHPERD.
Direct Service
By doing a form of direct service, it would require more effort than writing an e-
mail, but it would allow you to see the changes right in front of your eyes, and you would know the changes were because of you. If you were really ambitious, you could create an organization to encourage children to get active and taking that campaign around the country. It may not sound like a possibility for you, but there wouldn’t be any organizations or exercise campaigns in the United States if it wasn’t for ambitious people wanting to fight for a cause.Lifestyle/Personal Gestures
It is always easier to say that you’ll do something than it is to actually make those changes happen, but by making simple lifestyle changes, you can help raise awareness and get involved. Easy ways to change your lifestyle are by getting involved with campaigns such as Verb. The Verb campaign was coordinated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and focused towards “tweens”, between the ages of 9 and 13, with a mission to increase physical activity for the children in this age group. Along with Verb, there is also a non-profit organization called the America On the Move Foundation (AOM). America On the Move is similar to Verb, but instead of focusing on “tweens,” it focuses on promoting healthy eating and acting living among families, communities, individuals, and society as a whole.
Vocation/Call
If it is really important to you to help with the growing problems with physical education in the United States’ public schools, then you could consider going to school to become a physical education teacher.
Many schools offer programs in physical education training, even though the demand for physical education teachers is a lot higher than the government can supply. By becoming a physical education teacher, it would be similar to if you were to create a campaign of your own, in the sense that the changes will be right in front of your eyes. It wouldn’t be something that I encourage you to do unless you are absolutely serious about wanting to help children gain a strong basis on living healthy and exercising regularly.
2 comments:
i always wonder why America is ranked so low for everything
it wowuld help the whole working force is Americans were less obese and this would mean higher GDp
wouldn't this be a low opportunity cost?
John
I just watched the video above about verb yellow balls. They scattered these balls across the country to encourage kids to get active during the summer. Once you’re done playing with it, you pass it on to other people. I thought it was a really good idea in principle but I’m curious to know how well it really worked…in Austin, Texas we had these bright yellow bikes scattered around town that people could use and then leave. It was a really good idea but I remember seeing lots of them in disrepair or a homeless person had adopted one as their own. I think the trick with these ideas is making sure everyone knows about it, because you don’t want to be the idiot stealing public property. But anyway, I hope the verb ball worked, because exercising is the first step to cutting down obesity. Maybe once kids play with the verb ball a lot they will want more stuff like it in PE, resulting in more fun PE classes or just more PE classes.
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