quote:Originally posted by umberhulk: (that said Highschool P.E being a mandatory class is incredibly dumb)
On one hand, the value I got out of P.E. wasn't that great. (But then again I could say the same of many required academic classes). On the other hand, in light of the growing obesity problem in this country I think maybe that class should be more required and probably modified to be more useful.
So while one side thinks it a little silly to force kids to learn sports, the other side thinks of the kid who knew he/she hated baseball but discovered they enjoy soccer or swimming or something and learns to do that and stays fit for life.
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The more you modify it to make a difference the more taxing it is on a student's school day. That goes double if they are in fact, out of shape.
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I don't know if we should base it around sports(not everyoone finds physical competition and winning/losing to be exciting), but learning good cardio and perhaps anaerobic exercises should be a required part of the curriculum. I'm assuming that proper diet is covered in health classes.
We obviously can't depend on the parents to teach their kids to exercise.
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quote:Originally posted by Obama: I don't know if we should base it around sports(not everyoone finds physical competition and winning/losing to be exciting), but learning good cardio and perhaps anaerobic exercises should be a required part of the curriculum. I'm assuming that proper diet is covered in health classes.
We obviously can't depend on the parents to teach their kids to exercise.
Not everyone that is fat is due to lack of exercise. I was a very active baseball and football player, recreational swimmer and cyclist yet I was also overweight. It runs in the family, everyone but my maternal grandmother is big. You would not believe how amazed people were about how athletic I was at my size. Then my knee exploded in high school (birth defect, not a weight issue) and I put on 20 more pounds Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
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Wingracer, I'm aware that not everyone who is fat is that way purely due to lack of exercise and diet. There are certain diseases, metabolic disorders, and mobility restrictions that make it much more difficult. (Although in the case of mobility restrictions, being unable to burn off more calories, I would imagine, could at least in part be. counteracted by not taking in as many calories.)
Despite all of that, I seriously doubt that those conditions account for more then 10 to 15 percent of cases of obesity. Even if we're feeling generous and bump that number to 20, that still leaves a vast majority that just won't exercise and diet to the extent that is needed.
Obesity is a problem in the US. People are going to die off in large numbers due to it, many of whom are now children. More pragmatically, it's going to be a large strain on the national healthcare system.
At the very least, good ways to exercise should be required learning in school, in addition to nutrional education. Every schoolchild sees the pictures of a smoker's lungs, perhaps they should start showing the pictures of a fat person's overworked, diseased heart.
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quote:Originally posted by Obama: I don't know if we should base it around sports(not everyoone finds physical competition and winning/losing to be exciting), but learning good cardio and perhaps anaerobic exercises should be a required part of the curriculum. I'm assuming that proper diet is covered in health classes.
We obviously can't depend on the parents to teach their kids to exercise.
It doesn't matter. PE as what it is not is generally uneffective. If you give it teeth then wearing out a heavy kid, or a kid with asthma five minutes before their math test would still be incredibly unfair. Hell, I would definitely support a policy that replaced with more time dedicated to a health class.
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quote:Originally posted by umberhulk: (that said Highschool P.E being a mandatory class is incredibly dumb)
not at all, it's just that most highschool P.E. curriculums are incredibly dumb and amount to little more than an opportunity to feel even worse about a body you already hate
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Physical Education to me was always lacking in the Education aspect.
Teaching everyone how to play baseball doesn't seem like a terribly effective use of time. And as one of those kids with little athletic ability and asthma, I found it rather discouraging and demoralizing to constantly be told I wasn't trying hard enough.
Was I supposed to try to breathe harder? Cause trust me, I was trying plenty hard.
On the other hand, I would have benefitted greatly from basically having a personal trainer on hand. PE should have been a mix of occasional team sports and PT time in a weight room with maybe some exercise bikes or something. Weight and Body and Team Sports were extra elective classes you could take at my high school, but I skipped Weight and Body because the class was full of people I didnt want to be around.
Combining PE with Health class to create a hybrid that teaches nutrition and the mechanics of how to exercise would be been a great class. Most people don't understand that weight is a combination of genetic predisposition and diet. Most people can't exercise their way to being thin. And it would have been nice if I could have started a better workout program when I was younger instead of trying to get into it now.
But I can't do intense cardio, not without my lungs burning a hole through my rib cage. I do some light biking and fast walking for cardio, but if I'm going to burn calories, it's with weights, something we never even touched in high school PE.
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I'd much rather spend my physical endurance of the day doing something I want to do, then something I hate doing and I'm being graded on. It's possible that most people can be healthy just through eating smart. Teach people about that and exercise mechanics--but you should never be graded on how healthy you are. Which is what current day PE is, it's just that as long as you behave you get a C.
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Although, in some ways it's not really any less fair than grading people on how smart they are. Smart people and athletic people are both predetermined by their genetics to a degree, and no amount of studying, like no amount of training, will overcome that gap for many.
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Well if it's too high class to talk about American sports, it's definitely too high class too talk about American motorsports.
Still, the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series ran at Eldora tonight. First time EVER on a dirt track. That was one hell of a good show. Some of the best racing I've seen in a long time as they were all fighting to be the first ever winner on dirt.
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