Obesity Prevention in Child Care: A Review of U.S. State Regulations

Comment: This report was done by Sara E Benjamin; Angie Cradock; Elizabeth M Walker; Meghan Slining; Matthew W Gillman BMC Public Health.

It is an open access report.

Here are some of the highlights:

Objective. To describe and contrast individual state nutrition and physical activity regulations related to childhood obesity for child care centers and family child care homes in the United States

Conclusion. Many states lack specific nutrition and physical activity regulations related to childhood obesity for child care facilities. If widely implemented, enhancing state regulations could help address the obesity epidemic in young children in the United States

Rates of obesity in children continue to rise in the United States and abroad. Even among preschool-aged children the prevalence of obesity is alarmingly high, with 26.2% of children aged 2 through 5 years in the United States classified as either overweight or obese.

Even in childhood, obesity is associated with a variety of adverse health consequences that can include Type II diabetes mellitus, hypertension and hyperlipidemia, asthma and sleep apnea, early maturation, lower self-esteem, and psychosocial stress.

Additional research has identified the preschool period as a critical time for growth, development, and risk of later obesity.

While there are genetic factors related to childhood obesity, diet and physical activity-related causes are modifiable and have therefore been targets of obesity prevention efforts and research.

Associations between dietary intake and obesity have been examined in numerous studies.Intake of sugar sweetened beverages and high fructose corn syrup may be contributors to the obesity epidemic, as the increases in consumption show a pattern consistent with the rise in obesity.

Other studies corroborate this finding and report that sweetened beverage consumption, including soft drinks and fruit juice, has increased in all children, including toddlers, and is related to childhood obesity.

Studies examining the relationship between fruit juice intake and childhood obesity have shown mixed results.

Adult behaviors may interfere with a child’s ability to respect hunger and satiety cues. There is some evidence that restrictive feeding and forcing children to eat are related to childhood obesity. Moreover, using food as a reward may also have a negative effect on children’s weight status.

Additionally, there is strong evidence that breastfeeding has a protective effect against later childhood and adolescent obesity.

Strong evidence also links childhood obesity to television viewing both through observational studies and randomized controlled trials. Even among preschool-aged children television viewing is associated with risk of obesity. Little is known about the contribution of computer use and its relationship to obesity in young children; one recent study found an association between computer use and adiposity in preschool-aged children.

In addition to television and other screen time, researchers have associated physical activity with obesity in young children, with low levels of physical activity observed among preschool-aged children, and in particular, preschool-aged girls. Burdette and Whitaker found that play, which can involve any type of physical movement, is on the decline among children of all ages and may contribute to increases in sedentary activity and obesity.

In the United States, regulation of child care facilities is the responsibility of the individual state and the District of Columbia, and each has an agency responsible for oversight and enforcement of these regulations.

As a result, regulations for child care facilities vary considerably by state.

Child care facilities may serve as home-away-from-home settings, where children adopt early nutrition, physical activity, and television viewing behaviors. These behaviors are often a result of interactions with parents and other caregivers. Young children in particular are more likely to be influenced by adults in an eating environment.

Moreover, preschool-aged children may consume 50% to 100% of their Recommended Dietary Allowances in child care settings, placing a great deal of responsibility on the child care facility to provide nutritionally adequate, healthful food.

Child care facilities are in a unique position to support and facilitate healthful eating and promote physical activity for young children

In the United States, regulation of child care facilities is the responsibility of the individual state and the District of Columbia, and each has an agency responsible for oversight and enforcement of these regulations.

As a result, regulations for child care facilities vary considerably by state.

We reviewed state regulations for reference to seven key nutrition and physical activity items related to childhood obesity. The items have a documented relationship to childhood obesity in the research literature, and are likely contributors to diet quality and activity level.

Items included in this review were:
1) Water is freely available
2) Sugar sweetened beverages are limited
3) Foods of low nutritional value are limited
4) Children are not forced to eat
5) Food is not used as a reward
6) Support is provided for breastfeeding and provision of breast milk
7) Screen time is limited
8) Physical activity is required daily (minutes per day).

In this review of state regulations for child care facilities in the United States, we found that most states had few nutrition and physical activity regulations related to obesity for child care centers and family child care homes.

state regulations for child care we found that most states had few regulations related to obesity for child care centers and family child care homes.

Judy’s conclusions: Feeding children in a childcare situation, where children are out of the safety of their own homes, is an art. It should always be fun – that’s the goal. New foods, fun foods, eating with friends, and the general comraderie at table should be a given. However, what providers and teachers are finding is that children come to us without knowing how to eat much besides low nutritional value foods and sweet drinks. Children are not even encouraged to eat because in many homes what they are served is not worth eating. Yes, the GS uses food as a reward because it is a simple pleasure and it’s fun. Taking away simple rewards is not the key to reducing obesity. The key in my humble opinion to reducing obesity is the reduction of two things: soda pop and other sweet drinks, and increasing outdoor time.

The art of feeding children begins in the home. The reduction of “the expected sweet” is the goal. Not every food or drink needs to be sweet. The addition of sugar to regular food is something we all need to become aware of in hopes of reducing the idea that all things must be sweet. Beginning with drink. Water is the ultimate drink because it allows the body to re-hydrate without the additions of debilitating sugar and chemicals. But why do children resist water? Because most parents resist drinking water. Children want what their parents have.

“Mommy or daddy has a soda, and I want that too!” But mommy’s soda has 4 tablespoons of sugar per soda – that tells you something. “They drink so much juice, I finally went over to a powdered juice drink.” So why is sugar such a monster? It wears out the body’s ability to metabolize that sugar and sooner or later the body will be insulin resistant and then the possibility for diabetes has a wide open playing field.

Reducing sugar in foods is another goal. The best sweetened yogurt has 6 teaspoons of sugar in the little cup. Some cold cereals name sugar as the first ingredient. Sugar is often put in water to boil corn!!! There is sugar in canned spaghetti and boxed macaroni and cheese. Why? When a child is exposed to too much sugar, he expects everything to be sweet, and consequently he won’t eat things that don’t have his archetype for sweet.

In childcare, our duty as providers and teachers is to explore a balance of what nature presents in its most natural state and encourage children to learn to eat those natural foods. There are some exceptions but exceptions need balance:

Piggy Pie is a favorite of our kids, and it’s sweet like barbecue, but if you serve it with whole grain noodles and fresh vegetables and milk, the sweet meat finds its way into a balance.

Syrup on pancakes is also a favorite. Our pancakes are whole grain cakes with extra bran and other extra whole grains. I make our syrup, and it’s mostly water, but because it’s there and looks like syrup, the kids eat it up.

Chocolate cake: Our kids love our chocolate cake. It’s homemade with whole wheat flour, reduced sugar, bran, lots of cinnamon and other spices, and sometimes its full of applesauce and pumpkin.

Think about the food your child eats. But more than that, think about the drinks your child drank today. More children gain weight because of what they drink than what they eat.




Kids Learn Through Fun

Kids learn through fun

by: GINNIE GRAHAM World Staff Writer
8/24/2008 12:00 AM

Comment: Children learn more from their own play than they learn in a classroom; that’s for sure. The problem begins with the fact that most children don’t know how to play. They must be taught. Traditionally, the first child was taught to play by his or her parents, and then that child taught the other children in the family. Today, with so many one child homes and busy working parents, play is not taught, and children don’t know how.

Theoretically, everyone learns from play better than the classroom. Tinkering, thinking, dreaming, planning, doing, enjoying are all the words that surround the idea of accomplishment. It’s the same with kids.

Pretend play as a basis for childhood learning is getting more attention as pressure mounts to teach toddlers to read and have 4-year-olds memorize math tables.

Advocates are working more aggressively for young children to have the chance to play with blocks, dress up like ballerinas and build forts. This philosophy in early learning is not new, but it has become refined as research shows that concepts are understood better through play.

“This is the heart of what we teach to prepare early childhood educators and providers,” said Janette Wetsel, an assistant professor of early childhood education at the University of Central Oklahoma.

“With No Child Left Behind and pressures teachers are facing in public schools, they are taking play out of the curriculum. We are seeing more and more pencil-and-paper-type of exercises, which are good for older children but not for 4-year-olds.”

Pretend play concepts dominate professional development offerings and serve as a foundation in degree programs. They were the theme at the annual summer conference of the Early Childhood Association of Oklahoma, which is the state affiliate of the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Wetsel, who was the chairwoman for the conference, said she has received calls from parents of 3-year-olds looking for reading tutors and witnessed preschool classrooms removing play to put in rote and memory activities.

“There is a societal pressure that children should learn things earlier and earlier,” Wetsel said. “We want to be accountable for children learning. But we are seeing a push-down of the curriculum.”

It is possible to teach a young child to count to 10, but that child may not understand the difference between two and eight. Literacy skills also involve more than memorizing letters, researchers say.

Pretend play hammers home those concepts by having children experience math, literacy and science through centers placed in a classroom and within exercises facilitated by the teacher. Each item in a play center should have a purpose, Wetsel said.

Having properly educated teachers is paramount in delivering a play-based curriculum and designing an appropriate classroom, researchers say.

For example, teachers can foster effective play through games with directions such as Simon Says, offering joint storybook reading time and encouraging children to speak about themselves. The items should not be theme-based so children can use them in different ways.

“This is not about just sitting there reading a book while children play,” Wetsel said. “You are engaging with the child and putting things in the classroom to focus on learning.”

‘Underlying value’

Diane Horm, the director of the Early Childhood Education Center at the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa, said national accreditation groups are requiring providers to have a curriculum with at least one hour of free play, meaning the children get to choose how to spend that time.

“People of all ages learn with hands-on experience,” Horm said.

Research shows that the type of play that produces the best results includes three basic areas: imaginary situations, explicit roles and implicit rules.

Horm watched Cassandra Espino, 4, at Tulsa’s Educare Center, noting how the girl stayed at the art center for nearly the entire hour.

Cassandra started with stamping then moved into fingerpaints. After about 20 minutes, she started stacking sponges and adding cut-up pieces of paper. She eventually created a line of different stacks and papers representing animals and houses.

“She is learning so many concepts here,” Horm said. “She is showing creativity in the artwork and using fine motor skills, but there are math concepts in the stacking and sorting. She has made this into more than just an art project.”

Children who are allowed to finish a project that is started during the play session show gains in their attention spans, according to emerging research.

During Educare’s free play time, the classroom of 3- to 5-year-olds never grows loud or unruly. Children tend to stick with one center for at least 15 minutes.

“The idea that if you give kids a big block of time and they won’t know what to do just isn’t so,” Horm said. “There is an underlying value in the objects they are playing with and in learning how to be self-directed. Kids are learning how to schedule their time wisely, and this is a big part of development.”

Educare is a nationally accredited center created with private and public money for Tulsa’s low-income families. The children are educated year-round while the parents receive services to help them become self-sufficient.

Developing at different speeds

Each center is filled with items allowing for open-ended interpretation and activities. The teachers do not ask the children to replicate a model.

A theme of the sea permeates one classroom, with a sea cave for a dramatic play center where children cook in a plastic waist-high kitchenette and dress up in different costumes.

“We started out with dinosaurs, but the kids loved the tent, so we made it into a sea cave and added to it,” said a teacher, Allison Trapp. “They love sleeping under it.”

A 4-year-old pretends to wash her hair while a 3-year-old is feeding and burping a doll just after putting a meal of plastic food on the table for friends.

“She has a baby at home, so she is practicing what she sees,” Trapp said.

Horm said that playacting helps children understand that objects can represent different things, which eventually leads into letters representing words and numbers translating into objects.

Children are encouraged to work out solutions when they disagree. Teachers will watch as children argue; they intervene only to mediate.

“When there is conflict, we give them words to use,” Trapp said. “We work to find a solution both can agree on and not take a side.”

A couple of children play alone while others gather in groups. The ones who start out solo end up in a small group.

Horm noted, “In the flow of the day, some kids might want some time to be alone, and that’s understandable and OK.”

A room for younger children also has open play areas.

A baby batting at a mobile is learning about cause and effect and using motor skills. A 1-year-old boy following a 2-year-old girl pushing a miniature grocery cart is learning by observing.

Children develop at different speeds, and pretend play levels that field, Horm said. When playing, children who are behind can catch up faster and children at or beyond the appropriate level can enhance their skills by teaching others and pushing their knowledge.

“This is good for children with developmental delays, but it is also good for advanced children,” Horm said. “It’s an opportunity for peer interaction.”


Preschool classroom

Centers, each with a di)erent focus, are placed throughout a room. The centers provide an outlet for children to socialize and learn problem-solving together. There is no right or wrong in these centers.

Circle Area – It’s a central place for children to gather for story time or other group learning activities. The circle is often used to start and end the day and serve as a transition spot.

Art Center – Crayons, markers, paints, safety scissors, glue, stamps and other open-ended art materials help children develop fine motor skills and self-expression.

Block or Lego Center – Math skills come into play as children count, build, sort by size and discover physics and geometry. As children build forts, they are using higher functions of math.

Dramatic Play Center– A place for acting, dressing up and playing makebelieve. It is usually the most social and lively area of the room. Children work together as they invent situations in role playing.

Library Center – This is usually a quieter area of the room filled with books of varying reader levels. Children practice literary skills, which includes making up stories as they turn the pages or work on identifying letters.

Water and Sand Center – Enhances scientific concepts of cause and effect. Might be in the science area or outdoors.

Science Center – Its live animals can teach responsibility and how things grow. Other tools such as measuring cups, scales and magnifying glasses allow children to examine, experience and problem solve.

Just for Fun

This was an eye opener. Susie E sent this and I tried it; it’s fun.

How old is your brain?

1. touch start

2. Wait 1,2,3

3. Then circle the smallest number first to the largest number last.

START

When you go to Fabrica, scroll down to the fourth puzzle on the left.

Love

I think this speaks for itself. It made me cry. Friendships are so important. In my family’s past, we have had many friendships with many people and many creatures. It has been our gift. One such little one was a Starling – a bird named Mavis. She came to us after a storm. She was a large pink tube, and we fed her cat food and taught her to fly. She eventually returned to the wild. But for months she would come flying out of the trees to our heads and our hearts. It was truly memorable.

Nasty…

I got a nasty email from someone about the Ducks. Apparently it happened in Spokane and not San Antonio. I suppose people are really desperate about their ducks. Here in Indiana, we share our ducks. But that’s OK. So long as people are enjoying the blog and finding things to read and comment on!?!?

I thought it was a cute story, and it fit the picture of so many of our great parents. I can just see Robynn doing this or Jennifer or Todd or Jeff, or Miss Moll. There are too many to list.

Enjoy today

Ducks in San Antonio

Something really cute happened in downtown San Antonio this week. Michael R. is now an accounting clerk at Frost Bank and works downtown in a second story office building. Several weeks ago, he watched a mother duck choose the concrete awning outside his window as the unlikely place to build a nest above the sidewalk.

The mallard laid ten eggs in a nest in the corner of the planter that is perched over 10 feet in the air. She dutifully kept the eggs warm for weeks, and Monday afternoon all of her ten ducklings hatched.

Michael worried all night how the momma duck was going to get those babies safely off their perch in a busy, downtown, urban environment to take to water, which typically happens in the first 48 hours of a duck hatching. Tuesday morning, Michael watched the mother duck encourage her babies to the edge of the perch with the intent to show them how to jump off!


The mother flew down below and started quacking to her babies above. In his disbelief Michael watched as the first fuzzy newborn toddled to the edge and astonishingly leapt into thin air, crashing onto the cement below. Michael couldn’t stand to watch this risky effort. He dashed out of his office and ran down the stairs to the sidewalk where the first obedient duckling was stuporing near its mother from the near fatal fall.


As the second one took the plunge, Michael jumped forward and caught it with his bare hands before it hit the concrete. safe and sound, he set it by the momma and the other stunned sibling, still recovering from its painful leap.


One by one the babies continued to jump. Each time Michael hid under the awning just to reach out in the nick of time as the duckling made its free fall. The downtown sidewalk came to a standstill. Time after time, Michael was able to catch the remaining 8 and set them by their approving mother.


At this point Michael realized the duck family had only made part of its dangerous journey. They had 2 full blocks to walk across traffic, crosswalks, curbs, and pedestrians to get to the closest open water, the San Antonio River . The onlooking office secretaries and several San Antonio police officers joined in. They brought an empty copy paper box to collect the babies. They carefully corralled them, with the mother’s approval, and loaded them in the container. Michael held the box low enough for the mom to see her brood. He then slowly navigated through the downtown streets toward the San Antonio River . The mother waddled behind and kept her babies in sight.


As they reached the river, the mother took over and passed him, jumping into the river and quacking loudly. At the water’s edge, he tipped the box and helped shepherd the babies toward the water and to their mother after their adventurous ride.


All ten darling ducklings safely made it into the water and paddled up snugly to momma. Michael said the mom swam in circles, looking back toward the beaming bank bookkeeper, and proudly quacking.

More About Nutrition from Wisconsin

Day Care Meal Provider Serves Up Nutrition and Education

Quality Catering for Kids Launches Lesson Plans Tied to Menus

Comment: The more we can do with introducing children to new foods and better meals, the better. This is a marvelous effort.

Last update: 3:57 p.m. EDT Aug. 20, 2008

MILWAUKEE, WI, Aug 20, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) — A hot lunch is more than just good food for children at hundreds of day care centers and schools in Wisconsin and Illinois; it’s also an education in nutrition.
The education comes from daily lesson plans that accompany meals prepared by Quality Catering for Kids, which each day delivers more than 14,000 hot, nutritious lunches to childcare centers and schools in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois, said Jim Scharnell, president of Quality Catering for Kids.
“The lesson plans are fun adventure stories designed to complement the meals that are served daily,” Scharnell said. “The goal is to educate children about a balanced diet and the value of all the food groups in a way that they can relate to. The plans are designed to encourage healthful choices not only now but also throughout their lives.”
Each day’s meal has at least one food item that is a good example of the nutritional value the lesson plan is describing, he said. “The meals really are now part of the early education program.”
As a way to reinforce the message, children are encouraged to complete simple “homework” assignments each week. The worksheets have simple tasks such as looking in the refrigerator or freezer for broccoli or other vegetables and talking to parents about the nutritional value of those items.
“Our hope is that this will make it easy for kids and parents to learn sound nutrition via the stories and the homework,” Scharnell said. “Good nutrition is extremely important for young children, but existing lunch programs often don’t provide the essentials,” he added. “And sack lunches from home also usually lack the nutrition a child needs for lunch.”
The lessons plans and take-home worksheets are a hit for children at Guardian Angel Learning Center on Milwaukee’s east side, said Sr. Mary Louise Balistrieri of the center.
“We see the lessons plans as added value to the lunches,” she said. “It’s a good addition to the service. And the children really enjoy the lessons and the take-home worksheets; it’s going over very well.”
The nutrition plans complement the nurturing that childcare centers and pre-schools provide, said Nancy Lambert, a Wisconsin Dietetic Technician, Registered, who reviews all menu items to assure each meal meets nutrition and growth guidelines.
“Quality nutritious food choices are the gift a caregiver provides to encourage optimal growth and development of a child,” Lambert said.
The lessons plans are provided at no additional cost to day care centers that receive hot lunches from Quality Catering for Kids. An early childhood education teacher with a master’s degree in professional education writes the lesson plans, and notes that “early education is the key” in teaching about nutrition and healthy eating habits.
“We’re doing this at no cost to the childcare centers because we believe so strongly in the need for proper nutrition,” Scharnell said, adding that the program is unique. “I know of no other meal provider that offers a nutrition education along with the meal service,” he said.
Quality Catering for Kids prepares meals in a unique USDA-approved commissary in Lake Villa, Ill. Along with selecting foods that are nutritious, Quality Catering for Kids uses food preparation processes that retain nutritional value.
Specially outfitted trucks deliver the hot meals each day, so customers only have to open the heat-retaining carriers and portion out servings.
Because of its experience and volume, Quality Catering for Kids is able to provide nutritious hot lunches at highly competitive price and usually for less than the cost of a sack lunch.
Along with its Lake Villa commissary and offices, the company has an office in suburban Milwaukee that serves Wisconsin childcare centers and schools.
Jim Scharnell
president
Quality Catering for Kids
1-888-356-7513
www.qualitycateringforkids.com

School Clothes IN TX

From Teacher Magazine

Comment: I thought this was wonderful. School clothes are an issue with good teachers because school clothes affect a child’s whole day. Too often they are the focus of the parent and the child learns that clothes will make or break him or her, and without just the right clothes, a child can’t focus on anything but the clothes.

Clothes NEVER make the child, and parents who think they do, are creating a monster. The child should always outshine his clothes. I remember my mother saying once, “That dress is wearing that child” and the very idea that my own children’s persons would have been seen second coming down a hallway at school to an outfit is appalling to me.

Clothes are often seen as a status symbol. But that’s the problem, the CLOTHES are seen as a status symbol and the child is worn by the clothes unless the child is so outstanding he or she can overcome their clothes. Is a Walmart shirt really less than a Gap shirt? Why?

My family once owned the lofts that made Brooks Brother’s clothes. One of my great grandfathers was a furrier. Growing up I had very very few clothes, and often my school uniform was my best outfit. Of the clothes I had, my mother cut out every store label in every piece of clothing we wore. I Magnin’s or K-mart, what difference would it have made to me at six or eight or ten? None.

Here’s a story about what they are doing about clothes in Texas. I love it.

A Crime of Fashion

There are no bars on the windows, but Texas’ Gonzales High School could start to resemble a prison. A new policy at the school, located 70 miles east of San Antonio, states students who violate the dress code will be required to wear an inmate-style navy blue jumpsuit to class if they refuse to attend in-school suspension or don’t change their clothes, The Houston Chronicle reported.

“We’re a conservative community, and we’re just trying to make our students more reflective of that,” Gonzales Independent School District deputy superintendent Larry Wehde said. Dress code violations include spaghetti-strap tank tops, baggy clothes, miniskirts, clothes that reveal underwear, and earrings on male students. T-shirts have recently been added to the list, with students now expected to wear collared shirts.

Although school officials hope the policy will lessen clothing distractions in class, senior class president Jordan Meredith says some students plan to fight the policy by turning the jumpsuits into a fashion statement, even going as far as to say they will purposefully violate the dress code or purchase their own coveralls. “They’ll see it as an opportunity to be like, rebels,” he said. “I don’t think there’s going to be enough jumpsuits for everyone.”

Get Kids Moving

Want to boost kids’ grades? Get them moving
By Jacqueline Stenson

Jacqueline Stenson is a freelance writer in Los Angeles. A former senior health producer for msnbc.com, her work also has appeared in publications including the Los Angeles Times, Health, Shape, Women’s Health, Fit Pregnancy and Reuters Health.

Want to help your kids do better in school this fall? Get them moving. That’s the message from a growing field of research linking physical activity with better academic performance.

At a time when many schools have reduced or eliminated gym classes and recess, experts say the worry goes beyond the childhood obesity epidemic.

“It’s not only Johnny’s getting fat, and heart disease down the road — all that’s true. But it’s also that he might not do as well in school,” says James Pivarnik, president-elect of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and a professor of kinesiology at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

In one of the latest studies in this field, Pivarnik and colleagues found that middle-school students who performed best on fitness tests — which gauged aerobic capacity, strength, endurance, flexibility and body composition — performed better academically as well.

Results from the study, which included 317 students in grades six through eight, showed that the fittest group of students scored almost 30 percent higher on standardized tests than the least fit group. And the least fit students had grades in four core classes that were 13 percent to 20 percent lower than all other kids, according to findings presented at a recent ACSM meeting.

Experts speculate that exercise may boost academic performance in various ways, including: burning off pent-up energy and allowing kids to pay attention better and focus on their work; boosting self-esteem and mood; and increasing blood flow to the brain, helping with memory and concentration.

Studies in older people have found that cognitive function is significantly better among those who are active, Pivarnik notes. “This is the other end,” he says. “This is the developmental end.”

Teri Coha, a Chicago-area mother, says physical activity is essential for keeping her 9-year-old son, Cody, on track in school. He has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and although he takes medication for it, he needs daily exercise to help him focus, she says.

“We use exercise as a tool for studying because we would never get through it” otherwise, she says. “He just needs that outlet.”

Besides allowing for short exercise breaks during study sessions, sometimes Coha combines exercise and academics, practicing spelling words with her son while the two of them take a walk.

Some educators say they notice a difference, too.

Ken Endris, the principal at Fouke Elementary in Arkansas, where state law requires elementary students to get 150 minutes of physical activity (including physical education and recess) each week, says most kids enjoy activity breaks — and their teachers appreciate them as well.

“Teachers say the kids are more alert when they come to the classroom,” says Endris, a former PE teacher.

Organized sports not always the best answer
So if your child’s school is lacking in PE and recess, should you hurry to sign your kid up for sports this fall? Not necessarily. While sports certainly can help kids to shape up, regular free play — at the playground or your backyard — may work just as well, or even better.

In another study presented at the meeting, researchers found that kids engaged in more moderate-to-vigorous physical activity during non-competitive play than during competitive elimination games.

The research involved 29 children in grades four to six whose physical activity levels were assessed during two sessions of elimination games (such as tag, in which a tagged child had to sit out the rest of the game) and two sessions of non-elimination games (such as a modified version of tag, in which a tagged child could come back into the game after doing five jumping jacks).

“As you might expect, when you eliminate children from games, they’re less active because they’re sitting on the sidelines,” says study author David Dzewaltowski, head of the department of kinesiology at Kansas State University.

The same can happen with organized youth sports, he says, where kids may spend a lot of time on the bench, particularly if they aren’t among the star players. And some sports, such as soccer, generally involve more overall activity than others, such as baseball.

But even kids who don’t get much game time can get a lot of physical activity during well structured practices. Dzewaltowski urges parents to observe a couple practice sessions before signing a child up to make sure players aren’t standing around much of the time. A good coach, he says, keeps the kids moving with multiple training stations so they aren’t waiting in line to kick or hit a single ball.

Dodge ball doesn’t keep kids moving
Parents also can talk with gym teachers about incorporating different types of activities into class. Dodge ball, while a perennial PE favorite, is a classic elimination game that rewards the most skilled, often the jocks who are already fit.

Still, some exercise is better than none, which is why health and fitness experts are so concerned about kids getting less physical activity during the school day.

“You’re cutting off your nose to spite your face here,” says Pivarnik. “It’s pretty short-sighted.” The ACSM is pushing for more physical activity in schools, as is fitness guru Richard Simmons.

As a 268-pound high schooler who sat on the sidelines during sports and ate other students’ lunches, Simmons knows all too well about the challenges of being “the fat kid.” So when he testified before Congress recently about the need for more physical activity in schools, he said that like him, all kids can’t make the cut in sports, but all children can — and need — to move.

“Everyone is not a jock,” he told Congress. “Everyone cannot play sports. Everyone cannot run. But everyone can be fit.”