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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 

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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

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Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Educating the Student Body: Taking Physical Activity and Physical Education to School
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