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Most Students Not in 'Healthy Fitness Zone,' Test Shows

Posted on: Wednesday, 2 July 2008, 09:00 CDT

AUSTIN -- It's the worst-kept secret in school: Most kids are woefully out of shape if not plain fat. Video games have turned many Texas teens into couch potatoes. Soda is the new water.

But state officials say it's nevertheless jarring to see the raw figures from a new study confirming the obvious: Less than 10 percent of high school seniors, boys and girls alike, reach a "Healthy Fitness Zone" as defined by the Texas Education Agency. The younger kids do better, but even in third grade -- the first level that underwent testing -- less than a third of the kids were in the "zone."

"Our children are leading a sedentary, supersized lifestyle, and it's showing," said state Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, whose 2007 legislation called for the assessment of 2.6 million Texas children in grades 3-12. "It doesn't have to be this way."

Billed as the largest state study of its kind, the preliminary results released Tuesday show kids get more out-of-shape with each passing grade.

The "FitnessGram" test measures body composition, aerobic capacity, strength, endurance and flexibility. Participants were required to do push-ups and curl-ups, shoulder stretches, a skin-fold test, a trunk lift, and a one-mile run, officials said.

Detailed breakdowns by region were not available, but officials say more data will be released at the beginning of the 2008 school year.

Childhood obesity has risen steadily nationwide since the 1970s. From 1963 to 1970, 4.6 percent of children aged 12-19 were overweight. By 2000, that figure skyrocketed to 15.5 percent, according to 2003 data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nelson, who has pushed for more mandatory physical education in public schools, said today's children will see their lives cut short from diabetes and other diseases associated with an unhealthy lifestyle if policymakers don't make fitness a top priority. She is touting a law that will require students in middle school to engage in "moderate or vigorous" physical activity for at least four of six semesters beginning this fall.

Not everybody is jumping for joy about the new fitness focus. Fine arts advocates worry that kids will have to dump electives like drama and music to meet the new standards.

Robert Floyd, executive director of the Texas Music Educators Association, urged the Legislature to explore ways to make time for both physical education and fine arts, even if it means extending the school day.

"We all recognize the importance of children's health and the importance of physical activity for students," Floyd said. "But the reality is there's a limited amount of instructional time in the school day."

Some area school officials say they are not surprised by the state results and expect their own results to be similar.

"You get less active the older you get," Birdville spokesman Mark Thomas said. "If you followed that through to adulthood, I'd expect the numbers to continue to decrease."

Nor was it a revelation that young children are more physically fit than teens.

"Most people in the field would have anticipated that younger children would do better because they play more," said Fort Worth health and physical education director Georgi Roberts. "They don't have as much free range to purchase the food they want. They're restricted to the cafeteria and what Mom fixes for dinner."

School officials say they'll use the assessments to promote fitness in class and at home.

"We can be more proactive with our physical fitness curriculum and the time we devote to that in order to meet the physical fitness needs of our students," said Everman Assistant Superintendent Cathy Anderson Sewell.

Birdville's Thomas hopes the state's fitness emphasis doesn't die if and when private funding dries up.

"I hope this doesn't become another unfunded mandate which becomes a mandate for our taxpayers," he said.

Staff writer Martha Deller contributed to this report.

Out-of-shape kids Percentage of Texas school children who reached the "Healthy Fitness Zone:"

Girls Boys

3rd Grade 32.09 27.64

4th Grade 27.4 20.36

5th Grade 23.03 17.29

6th Grade 22.59 17.1

7th Grade 20.93 16.93

8th Grade 18.7 17.55

9th Grade 13.4 14.4

10th Grade 11.94 13.12

11th Grade 10.25 11.71

12th Grade 7.82 8.56

SOURCE: Texas Education Agency

Source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, Texas)

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