Don’t leave Hawaii’s children behind in physical education

THE ISSUE A survey has found that nearly 30 percent of Hawaii's high school students are overweight.

Obesity rates in Hawaii are second-lowest in the country for adults, but schoolchildren are not so trim. A major contributor to children's obesity is the little amount of physical education required in public schools. This year's Legislature rejected a proposal by Gov. Linda Lingle to increase P.E. but should recognize the necessity.

Surveys conducted by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and analyzed by Trust for America found that 20.7 percent of Hawaii's adults are obese. Children ages 10 to 17 had a 13.3 percent obesity rate, compared with a national average of 14.8 percent.

However, nearly 30 percent of Hawaii's high school students are overweight, and more than half of those are obese. Hawaii's childhood obesity rate has been growing at twice the national level in the past two decades.

Much of the blame can be placed on public schools' low requirements for physical education. Children from kindergarten through third grade are required to take only 45 minutes of P.E. each week and those in grades 4 through 6 must receive 107 minutes of P.E. Physical education is required in only one year for high schoolers.

The American Cancer Society, heart and diabetes associations and the Hawaii Chamber of Commerce called last year for elementary students to receive 2 1/2 hours of P.E. weekly and middle-schoolers 3 hours and 45 minutes a week, consistent with recommendations by the National Association for Sport and Physical Fitness.

Lingle proposed that children be required to take 45 minutes of P.E. a day from kindergarten through fifth grade and an hour daily from sixth grade through high school. Schools Superintendent Patricia Hamamoto said her department "strongly encourages" children from sixth grade through high school to take 200 minutes of P.E. weekly, but she opposed Lingle's proposal.

The bill "would result in instructional time being shifted from other content areas and school-determined priorities," Hamamoto testified to a Senate committee, with No Child Left Behind looming in the background.

The federal law's emphasis on reading and mathematics has caused P.E. in most Hawaii schools to be "reduced to one period a week or none at all," testified Roger Takabayashi, president of the Hawaii State Teachers Association. He added, "We support the increase of physical education but worry about the capacity of schools to deliver."

By excluding physical education from the core curriculum, No Child Left Behind fails to recognize the importance of physical fitness to a child's mental health and establishing a habit of activity extending through adulthood. Legislators should find a way to bring the schools' physical education requirements to an acceptable level.