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by Donald B. Ardell, Ph. D.
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Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)

If Not For Their Health, Then Perhaps for Their Minds: Why More Physical Fitness Is Essential for Schoolchildren

Monday March 24, 2003

We know that the amount of exercise most children experience today is pitiful. On average, according to the National Institute of Child Health, 3rd graders get less than 25 minutes of moderate physical activity in an entire week. It's about the same for other grades -- and that is one good reason why obesity levels for young people are at unprecedented high levels, and adult-onset diabetes is afflicting the young, as well as adults. We also know that too little exercise is bad physically in other ways, but what about mentally? Is there a link between sedentary youth and poor thinking skills?

I give you two reasons to consider that there is. The first is a series of analogies and metaphors said to be taken from high school essays; the second is a study just completed of nearly one million California fifth, seventh and ninth grade students. The former may or may not be actual high school paper excerpts -- I got this from those suspicious Internet posts and it was unattributed, so I could not check it our for accuracy. Even if pure hyperbole, the metaphors such as they are ARE amusing! The second reason is potent -- a study that seems to establish a clear connection between fit kids and higher academic performance.

After you read a few of these analogies and metaphors, you might find yourself insisting on more exercise in school scheduling.

He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the danger of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.
She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.
The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.
The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.
The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m., traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.
John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two other sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling -Free.
He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.
Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.
It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.

As noted, the second and much better reason to consider the link between exercise levels and academic performance for schoolchildren comes from a California study. Scores were matched using the Stanford Achievement Test with results of a state-mandated physical fitness test, known as the Fitnessgram. Researchers focused on scores in two areas: reading and mathematics, comparing both with fitness scores of 353,000 fifth-graders, 322,000 seventh-graders and 279,000 ninth-graders. The results are amazing! Without any doubt, the link was shown to be as strong as it can get. In all the grades, test scores increased with increased levels of fitness.

Naturally, this does not mean the entire focus on child fitness should be on the schools. Parents who are overweight are passing on their lifestyles and attitudes to their kids, in part by downplaying the importance of exercise, in part by denying that an overweight child needs special attention to exercise more. An overweight child is said to have an 80 percent chance of being overweight as an adult, according to Bill Ward, an exercise expert writing in a recent Tampa Tribune article on this topic. (See "A Wise Choice: Fun And Games For Children," March 13, 2003, p.2, Sports Section.)

In any event, if we can't expect that school boards and others responsible for the health and well-being of America's youth to promote vastly expanded exercise programming for the usual reasons, perhaps an appeal to the mental payoffs of fitness will be more effective. It certainly seems worth a try, don't you think?

Be well. Look on the bright side of life.

Domain: physical
Subdomain: exercise and fitness

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