Jeffery Alger is an athletic director certified by the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association based in Webster, NY. Physical education (PE) forms the basis of Jeffery Alger’s work in the North Tonawanda school district.
Research shows that a lack of physical activity has a direct relationship with a person’s risk of developing both physical and mental disability later in life. Despite the risk of diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, the WHO’s recommendations for adolescents are largely not being acted on worldwide. Global analysis shows that roughly 80 percent of children at school do not meet the recommended 60 minutes of physical activity per day, nor are schools doing much to help them reach that goal. Especially with the COVID-19 pandemic, most children are not active enough.
There are other factors involved as well: for example, research by the Utah Women and Leadership Project shows that only 14 percent of school-age girls are meeting the recommended amount of physical activity. Boys and young men are generally slightly better off when it comes to engagement in PE due to teachers enforcing a culture of masculinity that associates competition with worth, but beyond that roughly half of all students are spending 2-5 hours a day either watching television, playing video games, or doing homework (or, increasingly, taking classes online). If the current generation of schoolchildren are to grow up healthy, and we are not to see a new health crisis emerge in their adulthood, more must be done to ensure children meet the minimum requirements for physical activity in their adolescent years.
