Interesting Article on Obesity and Pull-Ups

Why are you calling people "morons"?

 

Perhaps moron is inappropriate and for that I apologize. It simply shocks the conscience that anybody has difficulty seaparting fitness and academics. It is simply incredulous. Under this plan, people who are unfit don't graduate. That's what we need, more people out there with no HS diploma.

That is why I said what I did. But it was still not acceptable. Please accept my apologies.

 

Why are you separating the two? Should we separate all academic subjects now? I think not. For instance, if one person isn't a math wiz he/she should have to bust their ass to make the grade in a math class, the next guy that isn't quite so physically gifted should have to work his ass off to meet the minimum criteria to pass a simple gym class.

I agree that people should not be kept from graduating simply because they are not at the top of their potential physical condition, but physical fitness and health are just as important to ones future as history, math, english, science, etc.

 

What about amputees. Will there be some alternate leg excercise, or are they SOL. If there are leg excercises, would those be available to everyone as an alternative. Fitness is not considered a big deal in school because the kinds of jobs you need a higher education for are not the jobs that you need to be in great shape to do. Fitness oriented jobs, like professional athletes do not take book learnin' and academic oriented jobs like engineering do not require you to do pull ups.

 

You have GOT to be kidding me!!!!! So all of a sudden gym is an academic subject. Whew! I can just see that Socrates in sweatpants now.

Because it isn't the lack of gym that is causing us to fall behind economically on the world stage. I'm much more concerned that a surprising percentage of high school juniors can't locate the city in which they live on a map. Better yet, go ask 100 11th graders and ask them who Goering and Hess were. I'll bet that not even one third would come back to you with "some Nazi dude." Our education systems are in crisis, so please forgive me if I don't give a flying tinker's damn whether or not little Johnny can do 10 pull ups.

 

Yes I was kidding. I guess you couldn't sense the sarcasm in my statement, but since you brought it up, yes gym, which could also be called kinesiology, is an academic subject. A more detailed definition would be a "non-invasive method using muscle feedback and body awareness that can help you reduce stress and pain, improve performance at school, at work, at home, in sports, in relationships, and promotes health and well being."

I'm not sure if you learned anything in gym, but I did. So if gym can help improve performance in school alone, I think it would be a highly valuable piece of our educational system's academic makeup.

Are we falling behind economically on the world stage? Maybe, that is debatable, but that isn't the subject at hand. The subject is obesity and solutions to cure this ever-"growing" problem in America's youth. While the author of the article at hand proposed an extreme solution, I don't think it would be to much to expect America's youth to be expected to work just as hard in the classroom to receive credit in their PE/Health classes rather than expect the credit as it currently happens to be. It's a simple solution to a growing problem.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that our educational systems have been on the decline for years, but again, neglecting something as important as personal health should not be ignored, especially with our nations youth.

 

I've got a nice Bachelor's degree, have been in the workforce 5 years, own a house, my wife and I are raising a kid, and I don't have the slightest clue who Goering and Hess are. I guess if I did know who those two guys were though, I might have a bigger house in a nicer neighbourhood. Damn. Crisis indeed.

 

See, I'm with you to a great extent on making exercise in some form part of the everyday schooling of our kids, as well as putting some form of more stringent requirement on getting that credit and continuing on. And perhaps included in that would be some attention to nutrition and other health topics.

But this specific requirement seems to be more of a "feel good" thing than actually accomplishing anything. Like I said, I can do ten pull-ups, and I am not anywhere near what one would call "good shape" (though I was in better shape in junior high and high school than I am now because I did exercise daily then, largely in Phys Ed classes). The way this is presented, it was like calling for a one-time ten pull-up requirement to graduate and not calling for increased physical education standards throughout a student's academic career.

Forget the 10 pull-up test to graduate. I don't think that would achieve the goals the author really wants to accomplish.

And it really likely would be illegal for employers to require such feats if they were not germaine to the job.

 

I know who they were, though I didn't learn it in school. But who needs school when one has the History Channel?

(P.S. Where did you get a nice bachelors degree? My school only offered the mean old b*stard bachelors degree.)

 

Your view of education is most limited. You seem to believe memorizing trivia is the most important thing about primary and secondary education. Is it more important to know who Rudolph Hess was or to be physically fit, or at least not obese? If you think the former than you are wrong. Besides your argument is spurious to begin with as gyms are already part of basic education everywhere. It is already 'required' in most schools. Bally's is irrelevant.

Then you fail to realize WHAT we should be educating children about. I think their health is a very important subject. You don't. Such foolish thinking is WHY we currently have an obesity problem in the US.

Ah, very persuasive. BIG GOVERNMENT BAD. How enlightening. I believe the size as scope of what happens at these schools would stay the same. The results could be a boon both intellectually and economically. And if this is how you would argue the case in court I would love to see the transcripts of you getting thumped.

Actually studies consistently show that physical fitness improves performance. And increased stamina allows for more efficient time usage for longer periods, with less recovery and illlness time out. I don't think its necessary to know who Hess is, especially since he was a relatively minor figure. The net gain for NOT BEING OBESE would swamp learning your trivia answers. And studies also show that you are more likely to be hired for a position if you are not obese. You are more likely to live longer, contribute to the economy longer, if you are not obese. You are less likely to be depressed if you are not obese. You simply have not thought about the real impact it has on the US.

As for the amputee/shoulder problems etc etc, it should be obvious that there would have to be some other way to evaluate fitness, or even to more generally reform the health/physical fitness part of the educational system (including the nutrition in schools) as mrpaige (i think) suggested.

 

I don't think you should be allowed to graduate unless you can run the 100 in under 11.5 seconds.

When I was a relatively strong jr. high kid, I did 7 pull-ups at 105 pounds. My bench might have been 110 or so. But, I considered myself in decent shape. I've never been good at doing pull-ups. I don't know why.

 

Perhaps if that lazy Stephen Hawking would get off his duff and do some chin-ups, he could finally do something to benefit humanity. Thank God we still have physically fit people like Allen Iverson to look up to.

 

ROTFLMAO.

Bravo.

 

If you think that knowing the major players in Nazi Germany and their import on world events is "trivia," then you are the one with the problem. It's good to know that you find the Holocaust to be trivial. The actions of those men caused the slaughter of 6 million people. Then in response in 1948 the state of Isreal was created. Gee...I wonder why that's important? Is this backwards thinking what we really need when we have kids graduating from high schools who can't read simply because they can play football. Those kids sure are fit...let's give that ignorant jacka$$ a diploma. I know the fat kid got accepted to Harvard but until that sissy can do 10 pull ups forget it. Brilliant idea!

Don't you worry about my legal career. You see current federal law guarantees children to a public education. That's ALL children...not fit children...ALL children.

If what you are talking about is a reform to health class to make it a REAL class instead of the joke that we took when I was in school, then let's do it right now. Many kids are suffering from a lack of truthful information in regards to health and fitness. This causes kids who actually do exercise to do the wrong things in an effort to better themselves. But a fitness requirement is absurd. Hey dude...can ya hold my mortar board, I gotta stop and do these pull ups on my way across the stage.

 

well as long as they don't make me touch my toes.

egads, it's so unfair cuz they're so far down there, mocking me.

 

My health class was a complete joke, and since I wasn't inclined to learn about taking care of myself on my own I really didn't know anything until I got out of college. If I remember correctly, we covered drugs for the first half of the class, and in the second half of the class we went back and covered drugs again because the coach/teacher/moron wasn't comfortable talking about sex.

Now that I look back on HS, everything seems SO absurd. That class could actually make a huge difference for a lot of kids if it were taken seriously. The subject of "drugs" could have been covered in one week, and then we could have moved on to things that actually help you in life like nutrition, strength, flexibilty, cardiovascular fitness, and real health problems like cholesterol. It's a shame that I was subjected to a bunch of politically motivated scare tactics.

Another thing.... I don't ever remember having any instruction on anything in my gym classes. It seems like the coaches just sat on their butts all day and we just ran around playing semi-structured games. All I ever knew was that I ran in the middle of the pack when we had to circle the backstops. I had no idea how far we were running, how fast we were running, if I ever improved, what was proper form, or what the health benefits were of running. Does this match other people's experiences from school?

 

Pretty much mirrors my experience - and I'm one of those people for whom a structured class could've helped!

Phys Ed and Life Management Skills classes, both required to graduate in Florida (except for sports players, ROTC members, or Intl. Baccalaureate students, who are all exempt - an absurd exemption, if you ask me, considering cheerleading isn't a sport, but that's not the idea here), are largely a joke. While in elementary school, my teacher really took a liking to his job, it gradually declined as I entered middle and high school.

By the time high school rolled around, it seemed like PE was taught by coaches looking to make a little extra money and be legit school personnel by "teaching" a class. In fact, most seemed impressed that I actually worked in that class - quite possibly the most out of shape person there. By the end of the semester, instead of watching 90 kids not try to run half a mile, it became watching 90 kids try to play basketball. If I hadn't actually tried the athletics that I have tried, I probably never would've gotten in shape and lost all of the weight that I did.

Life Mgmt Skills, or LMS for short, was an even bigger joke. I made the mistake of not taking it over summer school, so I was stuck in a class with a lot of people who would be lucky to finish the grade they were in - let alone high school. The teacher didn't seem to care that much, either. Case in point: just by actually doing the exercises that we were assigned - a hard concept, I know - I ended up with a 157% average in that class. Yes, you read that right - 157%.

Instead of making random skills like being able to complete 10 pull-ups (something that won't get you anywhere in life just because you can do them) a requirement, people should be focusing on what is wrong with current physical education and life management programs in America's high schools and fixing those problems. Sadly, it seems too many of these teachers are also the coaches of the high school's sports programs and are more concerned with their team than what, ultimately, is more important: everyone else.

 

You are making NO sense. Somehow you think if there is a fitness requirement the history classes somehow become less effective. Please explain how that is the case.

Goering was a stooge and Hess was in jail in Britain when the holocaust moved into full swing. Himmler had much more to do with the planning and execution than Hess. It is not necessary to know EITHER of those characters to have heard of or discuss the implications of the holocaust.

Not sure what this has to do with this discussion. Sorry some football player stole your milk money...

Who advocated giving fit kids a free pass on the rest of the curriculum? I missed that post.

Yes. And your point is? Oh, there isn't one. Yes, all children should have an education. Children who were not fit would not be excluded from the rest of the curriculum would they? They would be attending all the same classes as their peers, right?

You've given no warrant why a fitness requirement is absurd. All of the (what you call) 'academic' curriculum would still be there in the schools. It is not a zero sum game. And you pretty much contradict yourself when you propose children have a 'REAL' class 'in regards to health and fitness.' One would assume there would be a grade in that REAL class and that FITNESS would be somewhere in there, LOL.

 

Thank you Hayes. You pretty much summed up what my next post would have said.