HES Professor works to prevent childhood obesity

Since 1980, the number of overweight children in America has doubled. A devastating loss of funding has recently forced public schools across the country either to cut physical education classes entirely or reduce them to a mere 30 minutes per week.
The result has been an increasing number of obese children.
Julian Reed, assistant professor of Health and Exercise Science, has suggested a solution through "integrating movement into the classroom curriculum."
Reed has been conducting workshops for elementary school teachers in the Greenville area, teaching them how to incorporate movement into their curriculum.
"Children aren't made to be sedentary for eight hours a day," said Reed. "Allowing students to move around enables them to focus on what they're learning."
Art, music and physical education classes are eliminated from schools when budgets are tight. Many children are not getting the recommended full hour of physical activity every day, and schools are unable to meet that requirement through physical education classes alone.
Additionally, the demand for higher standardized test performance has bombarded teachers with an overwhelming amount of material to cover. Consequently, some states have cut recess from the school day, saving time for the classroom and leaving little time for children to be active.
For school systems to meet the demands of both academic expectations and physical needs, Reed said, they need to take the pre-existing curriculum and show teachers how to use simple fundamental movements like hopping, skipping and running in their lesson plans.
"Asking first-grade teachers who specialize with language arts to add physical education to their daily routine is asking too much of them," said Reed.
However, there is another reason beyond the health benefits that has prompted Reed's interest in movement.
"Physical activity-motion-increases a child's ability to focus," said Reed. "It creates neural activity that enhances learning."
Moreover, the teachers who have already put this theory into practice attest to a general decrease in behavior problems and an improvement student grades.
The benefits of this integration are twofold. First, simple movement skills increase the amount of activity children participate in. Second, movement puts classroom lessons into a context that fully engages students.
Lack of activity is a problem for children of lower income families.
"We know that wealthier Caucasians are more likely to be active," explained Reed. "But those who are on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum don't have equal access to comparable resources to be as physically active."
A recent study conducted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation revealed that moving from a high poverty area to a low poverty area is associated with a 50 percent increase in the overall availability of physical activity facilities.
Since every child is required to attend elementary school, creating the opportunity for physical activity in the classroom is the only way to guarantee that kids from all backgrounds are getting the same chance to be active.
"If a child can get 30 minutes of activity during school, half of the daily requirement has been met," said Reed.