This article talked about a new program they have developed which allowed kids to get involved with the school and stay active for about 90 minutes after school. The program involved children playing sports like soccer and basketball and even dance. Two years later they compared how much the children weighed before and after. They found that girls that were obese lost weight more than the boys that were obese. I found this studies results quite obvious, but I decided to write on it because I'm surprised more schools don't require this or offer this. I know many schools especially Middle School and High School have sports you can get involved with but these are optional and usually too late. By this I mean a number of kids are already obese or overweight. Do you know any schools that provide this opportunity or require kids to get the needed exercise in their life? How much of a benefit do you think this would provide children or don't you think it would help much? What else do you think we could do as a society to put the obesity problem to a stop?
I know i always hated participating in gym class. I did not like running laps and doing the various sports. In my hometown we got to choose a different gym class as juniors and seniors. We were given options such as weightlifting, dance, swimming, basketball and many other things. I felt like i participated and was much more willing to be active when it was in something i chose. I had much more motivation doing something that i liked. I feel like programs like these should be implemented at more schools and for everyone. It is much easier to get children to be active if they actually like the activity they are doing. If children are shown that exercise can be in activities they enjoy, then they will be more likely to exercise throughout life.
I think this article is pretty interesting. One thing that struck me was the connection between social need and doing something healthy for these middle school children. At some point, you have to incorporate the interest of the children, and whatever you interest you have (in this case it was getting them active). The after school program served as a really great social experience for the middle schoolers, which we all know is VERY important at that age; Any more time with friends is great. According to Reeve (2009) in chp 7, 'social needs arise and activate emotional and behavioral potential when need-satisfying incentives appear". Of course this is going to put the children in motion and motivate them to participate in such a program, and ultimately become active :)
I agree with Brianna on this topic. I was the same way in high school. I believe it depends heavily on the type of exercise. I wouldn't want to be told what kind of exercise to do. I would want to chose. I hate to run. Period. In any sport, for any reason. I hate it, it makes me feel aweful,I get side aches and I have asthma so I have had asthma attacks in school before because for our Physical education class our teacher made us run laps and sprints outside on the track. I used to look for any way to get out of it, often I would go to the nurse's with a "headache" just to avoid it. However, I was very active in volleyball, basketball, and softball. I didn't mind doing other exercises or lifting weights, I just couldn't stand running, for any reason. When we would have to run sprints for basketball I would act like I had to go to the bathroom just to get out of it. Eventually my coach caught on and made me run after practice one day for always skipping my sprints. I do think that children need some sort of physical activity, but instead of making them run sprints and run laps, why not engage them into a game of flag football or dodge ball, or kick ball? All of these activities have physical exercise and they don't even consider it to be "exercising" but more like playing. I also think that parents have a big role in childhood obesity, I think they need to be more involved and get their children away from computer, television and get them outside being active. It's not all on the schools to make sure children get proper exercise, parents are responsible also.