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Educating the Student Body
For nongovernmental organizations, potential actions include
•
developing advocacy materials and planning dissemination of these
materials to key stakeholders.
Monitoring Physical Education and Opportunities
for Physical Activity in Schools
Recommendation 4: Education and public health agencies at all govern-
ment levels (federal, state, and local) should develop and systemati-
cally deploy data systems to monitor policies and behaviors pertaining
to physical activity and physical education in the school setting so as to
provide a foundation for policy and program planning, development,
implementation, and assessment.
Rationale
The intent of this recommendation is to give citizens and officials
concerned with the education of children in the United States—including
parents and teachers as well as education and public health officials at the
local, state, and federal levels—the information they need to make decisions
about future actions. Principals, teachers, and parents who know that regu-
lar vigorous- and moderate-intensity physical activity is an essential part of
the health and potentially the academic performance of students and who
have adopted a whole-of-school approach to physical activity will want
and need this information. This information also is important to support
the development of strategies for accountability for strengthening physical
activity and physical education in schools.
Aside from a few good one-time surveys of physical activity during
physical education classes, remarkably little information is available on the
physical activity behaviors of students during school hours or school-related
activities. Even the best public health monitoring systems do not obtain
this information. This dearth of information is surprising given that school-
related physical activity accounts for such a large portion of the overall
volume of physical activity among youth and that vigorous- and moderate-
intensity physical activity is vital to students’ healthy growth and develop-
ment and may also influence academic performance and classroom behavior.
Evidence is emerging that laws and policies at the state and district
levels can have important influence on the physical activity behaviors of
large numbers of children and adolescents. Also emerging is evidence of a
gap between the intent and implementation of school physical activity–
related policies, so that their final impact is commonly less, sometimes
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Educating the Student Body: Taking Physical Activity and Physical Education to School
Recommendations
373
appreciably so, than expected. While the factors that create an effective
policy are still being elucidated, policies that entail required reporting of
outcomes, provision of adequate funding, and easing of competing priori-
ties appear to be more likely to be implemented and effective. Further evalu-
ation of physical activity and physical education policies is needed to fully
understand their impact in changing health behavior.
Monitoring of state and district laws and policies has improved over
the past decade. In general, the number of states and districts with laws
and policies pertaining to physical education has increased, although many
such policies remain weak. For example, most states and districts have
policies regarding physical education, but few require that it be provided
daily or for a minimum number of minutes per week. Those that do have
such requirements rarely have an accountability system in place. Although
some comprehensive national guidelines exist, more are needed to define
quality standards for policies on school-based physical activity and create
more uniform programs and practices across states, school districts, and
ultimately schools.
The few existing monitoring systems for school-related physical activ-
ity behaviors need to be augmented. Information is needed not only on the
amount of vigorous- or moderate-intensity physical activity in which youth
are engaged but also on its distribution across segments of the school day
(i.e., physical education, recess, classroom, travel to and from school, school-
related before- and after-school activities). Existing national surveys are not
designed to provide local or even state estimates of these student behaviors.
State departments of education, local school districts, and state and local
health departments will need to collaborate to provide adequate monitoring.
Also needed is augmented monitoring of physical activity–related guidelines,
policies, and practices at the federal, state, and local levels.
Potential Actions
For the U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human
Services, potential actions to implement this recommendation include
•
collaborating to ensure the availability and publication of informa-
tion about school physical activity– and physical education–related
policies and students’ physical activity behaviors and
•
facilitating collaboration among state and district departments of
education and state and local health departments to obtain and
publicize such information.
For federal agencies, specifically the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC), potential actions include
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Educating the Student Body: Taking Physical Activity and Physical Education to School
374
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