St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Schools should require 60 minutes/day of PE, encourage walking, biking to school

The prestigious Institute of Medicine is recommending that schools provide opportunities for at least 60 minutes of physical activity each day for students and that PE become a core subject. 

Walk to School Day

The report, released Thursday, says only about half of the nation's youngsters are getting at least an hour of vigorous or moderate-intensity physical activity every day.

Another concern, the report says, is that 44 percent of school administrators report slashing big chunks of time from physical education, arts and recess since the passage of the No Child Left Behind law in 2001 in order to boost classroom time for reading and math.

With childhood obesity on the rise - about 17 percent of children ages 2 through 19 are obese - and kids spending much of the day in the classroom, the chairman of the committee that wrote the report said schools are the best place to help shape up the nation's children. . . .

PE isn't the sole solution, though.

The report advocates a "whole-of-school" approach where recess and before-and-after-school activities including sports are made accessible to all students to help achieve the 60-minutes-a-day recommendation for physical activity. It could be as simple as having kids walk or bike to school, or finding ways to add a physical component to math and science class lessons.

The report also cautions against taking away recess as a form of punishment, and it urges schools to give students frequent classroom breaks.