Exerpt from Issue Brief on Physical Education

The following is an excerpt from a full Issue Brief on physical education. The complete Issue Brief presents summaries of legislation introduced that addresses physical education and activity.

Today's society is filled with many distractions for children and adolescents, such as playing video games, watching television and surfing the Internet. These and many more have taken time and precedence, it seems, over physical activity. Although children are more active than adults, their level of activity decreases during adolescence, with the downward trend continuing through adulthood. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that one out of three children-33 percent-do not engage in the recommended level of daily vigorous physical activity. Coinciding with our changing culture are budget cuts affecting school systems and challenges to mandated physical education that have turned into optional classes in many school districts.

There is no federal standard or education mandate for physical education; therefore state and local boards of education are free to decide on the extent and intensity of the physical education curriculum and standards in schools. As a result, there is great variation among state physical education requirements.

Twenty-two states currently have statutes that mandate schools offer physical education programs as part of the school curricula-Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Idaho, Indiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Texas, Virginia, and Vermont. Illinois is the only state to require daily physical education classes through high school. Georgia, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, Tennessee, Oregon and Washington hold their respective state departments of education or boards of education accountable for adoption of physical education standards. Most states that require physical education programs provide exemptions for physical illness, religious reasons and physical disabilities.

As obesity rates have continued to increase nationwide among both adults and children, state legislators have turned to examining physical education standards in schools as a means to increase time spent physically active, creating a healthier community and hopefully cutting future health care costs of inactive adults. Legislators in 15 states-Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas-have or are presently considering or have considered legislation to address obesity through enhancement of physical education programs in schools.

For more information, please contact Lee Dixon at Lee.Dixon@netscan.com.

NCSL Health Policy Tracking Service -- The NCSL Health Policy Tracking Service published by NETSCAN iPublishing Inc. is a bipartisan service that systematically collects, monitors and reports on significant state actions that affect health care policies and programs. HPTS maintains a Web-based service at www.hpts.org with access to more than 300 topics in the following health-related areas: Access to Health Insurance/The Uninsured, Long-Term Care, Acute Health Care Providers and Facilities, Medicaid, Mandated Benefits, Access to and Cost Control of Pharmaceuticals, Nutrition, Obesity, Physical Activity and State Health Budgets. Its bill analyses, biweekly e-mail alerts and Issue Briefs are available free to state legislators and staff at www.hpts.org or by subscription to others. Legislators, staff and others should contact Lee.Dixon@netscan.com for user name and password information.