Readers' views: Getting exercised about kids' fitness

A push to introduce an hour of physical education each day in schools has received a strong response from readers. Here is a selection of letters:
Should schools be responsible for children's fitness?

The short answer is "no". At least not what has been suggested by the Government to provide one hour PE a day.

It is the parents' responsibility. Many of these overweight children are spending money in local supermarkets on fast food and chocolates, potato chips - and the schools are unable to control that.

Perhaps there could be two half-hour classes a week devoted to "sensible parenting skills" in which various issues should be addressed. It might make some children think of what they either are not getting at home, or why they are so overweight at their age.

This may lead to a certain amount of embarrasment but this idea could eventually improve the current problem.

Neil Jenkins.

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The overall responsibility for fitness must remain that of the parents, but with so many now relying on the state to do everything for them, additional areas of interest must be proposed so that today's children are made aware that there is life outside of electronic gadgetry.

As far as Pat Newman saying that the curriculum is already overflowing and that they have no time to have exercise, a simple solution is to increase the school term.

With today's pressures on families, why are schools still closing for 7-8 weeks in December- January?

If we reduce the annual leave to four weeks plus the statutory holidays, we would have an additional 3-4 weeks' teaching time, or 180-240 hours, to include exercise for all, as was done in the 1950s.

Trevor Green.

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Active physical education should be made compulsory at all levels in our school system. It was when I went to school - white top, white pants, white sandshoes.

Those who bemoan that the curriculum is already overcrowded need to think again. It is in our communities' best interest to have active, healthy children. Measure that against some activities taught in schools and I know what I would rather support.

Derek Battersby.

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It should be the combined responsibility of family, community and school to provide positive and imaginative opportunities for our young people to fully exercise their bodies and minds so to achieve total and full fitness.

Rob Reed, Co-ordinator,
Nga Kaiwhakairo-A-Opua
(The Opua Carving Group).

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In 1955 we started school at 8.30 and we all did the haka to keep warm in the winter outside, and also ran round the football field before assembly. We did this daily.

With New Zealand's national game of rugby, the haka is mandatory before the game. It would go down well with school children.

Jenny Scarfe, Massey.

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The PC brigade have to take a large part of the responsibility for lack of fitness in children, who have been sanitised to the point of not recognising danger.

These so-called "dangerous" activities provided the adventure and activity that is now being suggested the schools provide.

Parents who have continued to allow their children to explore the outdoors are often criticised for being irresponsible when the child is hurt.

Come on, get real. Schools are not the only source of learning. Parents, scouts, guides, camps, neighbours, friends, relatives - these are the areas to look to for this activity you wish to foist on schools.

Noeline Becker.

* * *

Finally the Government might be doing something about our growing obesity rate. I think an hour of PE a day in schools will do more than help to fight obesity. It needs to teach youth how to lose weight properly and what starvation does to the body.

The Government and schools need to make PE fun, eg, inline skating, windsurfing, aerobics, dance classes and kickboxing.

Make sure all sick notes are accompanied by a call from the parents to make sure they are legitimate, and hold an info evening for parents explaining the importance of healthy nutrition and attendance of PE classes for their children.

Hannah Grant.

* * *

I feel strongly that schools should not be responsible for fitness in children. Having worked extensively in schools, I have seen more and more parental responsibility loaded on to teachers, who are then criticised because children's literacy, etc, is not better.

Somewhere they need time to teach. Somewhere parents need to take responsibility for their children.

Maureen Sudlow, Coopers Beach.

* * *

Schools already have fitness sessions and PE skills development. These enhance the learning ability of the child during the school day as well as develop the child physically and develop a range of physical skills.

However, one hour a day of PE is ludicrous. The main responsibility for the health of the child, which includes emotional, physical (food intake and diet and exercise) and use of leisure time, belongs to the parents (and child), irrespective of whether they are working parents or not.

The school's responsibility is to give the child skills in the academic and other not-so-academic areas which lead to the child being capable of choosing a career path that suits his/her talents, abilities and personality.

But to stop children from becoming obese, educate the parents! And extra money would be well spent developing free or heavily subsidised community resources so that children can participate in after-school and weekend physical activities more easily.

Jean Wong.

* * *

Has PE been replaced by PC? Maybe a full hour a day is excessive in schools but the old primary and intermediate curriculum of the 50s specified at least "three separate half-hour periods each week exclusive of organised games".

How much time is specified now? What has happened to a sound mind in a sound body?

Geoff Barlow.

* * *

Another Government organisation taking advantage of the gullible public. How naive is the Minister of Education?

A survey of 424 children is not a representative sample. Ask any statistician. The figures are surely skewed and unreliable. Who audited the survey? Surely not another department with a hidden agenda.

Sparc are scaremongering in order to get more of the taxpayers' pie. What percentage of politicians are overweight? Maybe Sparc should start there.
Donna Preston, Whakatane.

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I don't know a permanent solution to the shocking figures on child fitness and obesity, but I do remember the fitness regimes of my school days.

I went to school in West Auckland in the 60s and 70s, and playing a team sport was compulsory for all pupils. The choices not only included the mainstream rugby and netball, but tennis, gymnastics, swimming, softball and a host of others.

All children of whatever fitness level or waist measurement were expected to take part, the only "out" being a doctor's certificate.

The benefits were obvious, with school teams crowding the parks and domains on Saturdays, and the habits of self-discipline and teamwork carrying on to adult life. Team sport participation was even included in comments on the school report (I still have them all).

We did not have time to get bored, sit for hours in front of the tv or get into trouble wandering the streets.

These school sports were additional to class sport at PE periods, where once again all students were expected to take part.

I agree with schools taking a more active role, but come on parents, don't shirk your responsibilities either.

Russell Colquhoun, Torbay.

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Where are the schools to find time to teach the core curriculum subjects of reading, writing and arithmetic as well as this new daily activity?

Schools are not a fitness centre, but a place to learn how to think, analyse and digest information.

Have the Ministry of Education staff not spent the past few years informing us that our primary and secondary schools in general are failing to produce children who can read, write, calculate and speak sufficiently to compete in the job market?

Is our job market not considered poorly skilled at present? Just imagine the flow-on effects in 10 years if this policy is implemented! We may have some fit young adults who are unable to be employed through their lack of, or poor level of, communication, written or mathematical skills.

David Whyte, Hamilton.

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I feel like shouting "Hooray - someone has woken up!"

In Zimbabwe generally, children by the age of 8 start school early (by 8am) and finish school at 4.30 or 5pm. The morning is dedicated to academic study. The afternoon is used for hobby clubs (pottery, music, debate society, wildlife club etc.) and for physical education. This is varied, eg, crosscountry, swimming, tennis, athletics, soccer, etc.

This is compulsory. It is understood by children and parents alike that that is the way things are. I do not know official figures, but obesity in children in Zimbabwe is almost non-existent. Children grow up to know what it is like to feel fit - and this creates a habit for adulthood. Physical activity should be taught as something that happens every day - the same way you eat or breathe.

Gail Kotze, Palmerston North.

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The lifestyle of a school student has changed dramatically in recent decades. Children frequently walked or rode bicycles to school but these days, because of stranger-danger problems and faster, denser more dangerous traffic, many children are driven to school by family car. The former mandatory requirement of a full hour of "sport" a week plus about three 20-minute sessions of phys-ed seems now to be inadequate.

Most schools now clear the children's heads by giving them 20 minutes of fitness every morning in, for instance, forms of aerobics exercises. These children approach learning with a much more settled outlook, with more academic work being achieved during the day.

A rethink is obviously necessary but curriculum time just cannot be eaten into any more than it has been already by other subjects.

I find that those schools which run organised lunch-hour activities keep the children occupied in far better ways than those that just allow the children complete freedom of choice.

With five half-hours devoted to "sport" in the lunch-hour and with the existing time that schools normally put into physical activity during school-time anyway, each child could have a weekly programme of approximately five hours a week.

Don McDowall, Meadowbank.

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What about an article about Government safety measures and political correctness, which have caused lack of exercise in schools in the first place.

I'm 28 and even when I was at school we spent most of the lunch hour on the go, playing tiggy, climbing towers and generally racing round.

We didn't even have much time for lunch.

Now I see kids sitting to eat lunch under sun shades. Towers have been removed, games like bullrush banned. No wonder kids aren't getting about like they used to.

Exercise for kids needs to be fun and generated within themselves, not an enforced PE hour.

There are already too many kids coming out of our schools not being able to read and write, so a PE hour is not going to help.

Bring back the freedom to be a real kid at lunchtime.

Rose-Anna Johns.

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Great. The rest of us have to suffer because parents are so irresponsible they can't get their kids off the couch.

I deliver my year-one daughter to school after a weekend of full physical activity to be greeted with 9am Monday "fitness".

For God's sake, I can do fitness. I want them to teach her to read and write.

They don't have a long attention span at this age and so you would think the morning could be spent doing something useful, but no, it's fitness because the rest of South Auckland are obese.

Maybe they should make them do an hour of fitness on the way to pick up their dole.

What next?

Mitty Forsythe.

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Principals Federation president Pat Newman is partly right about the lack of PE for our children.

Learning to move correctly is more important than any other educative procedure, because without movement there is no other educative process.

It takes about 18 years to perfect excellence in movement, then we tend to lose this optimum after about 15 years as age and modern living beset us.

"Movement is the first sign of life. Lack of movement is the first sign of death."

Children should not be deprived of the opportunities to learn and partake of the best possible exercise techniques available, just as they do of geography, mathematics and art in their school day.

Malcolm Hood, manipulative physiotherapist.

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Over 50 years ago visionary New Zealand educationists like Philip Smithells and Clarence Beeby saw benefit in giving children a range of fun physical activity options from Maori and European cultures, and prophesied that unless this was done children would seek other, less healthy options.

Beeby, despondent at the direction of physical education in schools, warned that educationists should look in the mirror and see that the enemy is us.

In the computerised age they have been proved right and today more children pursue sedentary pastimes than physical.

Commonsense would dictate, therefore, that schools should encourage their students to become more active.

The US Curriculum Directors have introduced to millions of their primary children 15 forms of high-quality indigenous games from countries all round the world, including New Zealand. Their emphasis is solely on games that stimulate children's creativity, are fun, are active and have a high variety of physical movements.

The New Zealand game is called Ki-o-rahi, yet even though it is traditional here, it is barely used.

The Maori games are fun, give children considerable choice and are non-judgmental, which lends them to being more easily adhered to for life, yet there is a dearth of people willing to teach them.

Harko Brown, PE/maths teacher,
Kerikeri High School.