Childhood Obesity and Fitnessgram Testing - Thesis Example

Childhood Obesity and Fitnessgram Testing Childhood Obesity and Fitnessgram Testing Obesity is a serious problem that is becoming more prevalent I children of school-going age across America. The national public health institute in America, the Centre for Disease Control, has affirmed that approximately one in three American children and teenagers can be said to be obese or overweight. This is almost thrice the number of obese children that America had in the 1960s. In America, childhood obesity now surpasses smoking and drug use as the foremost concern of parents and the government. The CDC has in the past suggested that the objective of all programs dealing with obesity should seek to stop weight gain occurring in the first place beyond what is deemed as being suitable for given height increases. This could mean finding ways to limit weight gain as he children grow taller. The CDC has also suggested that strong social support systems should be instituted to encourage the maintenance of a healthy weight among children. Involving the parents of the children in all programs created to check the development of obesity is one way in which this can be accomplished. Schools can also be part of the support system by providing only healthy meals for students during the day. According to the CDC, Georgia seconds West Virginia as the second most obese state in children of school going age in America. This has inspired schools in Georgia to begin implementing programs such as the Presidential Fitness Award to try and change obesity trends among children. In spite of these efforts, there are still many additional students who become obese in Georgia every month; indeed, today, 40% of Georgia’s school going children are said to be obese (Georgia Shape, 2012). The governor of Georgia in 2008, Nathan Deal, endorsed the Georgia Student Health and Physical Education (SHAPE) Act whose aim was to make sure that all schools had programs that had cardiovascular workouts, and built muscular strength as well as endurance. Georgia’s governor also approved of the use of Fitnesgram testing in schools. Fitnessgram, which was formed by the Cooper Institute in 1982, seeks to include different assessment procedures in determining the ways in which obesity can be tackled in individual students (The Cooper Institute, 2012). In Georgia’s schools, it has been discovered that the sedentary lifestyle involved in learning is a big factor that contributes to obesity. This is becoming a bigger problem as even more theory is added to different subject- which means that more time has to be allocated to learn those subjects. Physical education lessons tend to suffer when more time is needed to cover comprehensive subjects in schools (The Cooper Institute, 2012). Another area in which schools contribute to obesity trends has to do with the foods that they serve in their cafeterias. School children usually eat at home as well as at school during the week days. This means that they eat more calories than are necessary. In addition, most schools do not provide healthy food stuffs for their students but provide sugary food stuffs as well as drinks. Given the fact that most students are usually tired after learning, it is unlikely that they will want to engage in a lot of physical activity after lessons. They are more likely to retreat to their couches to watch television or play video games after finishing their home work. Different programs such as the Presidential Fitness Award are trying to change this trend among students by encouraging them to participate in more outdoor activities. In Georgia, the Student Health And Physical Education Act was passed to assist with this plan. The bill allows for every school district to conduct a fitness assessment whose results will be sent to every child’s parents (Mood, Jackson, & Morrow, 2007). SHAPE will allow individual students to be able to gauge their individual progress in overcoming obesity while also informing the local government of this progress. SHAPE generates information through the Fitnessgram about body strength and flexibility (Ferguson, Keating, Bridges, Guan, & Chen, 2007). There are four different elements in Georgia’s SHAPE Act. The first aspect has to do with ensuring that every school child’s parents are informed of the progress in their child’s interest. The second element addresses the need for school districts across the state of Georgia to implement the BOE guidelines according to the physical education programs. The SHAPE Act also deals with the importance of employing benchmarks to evaluate the effectiveness of physical education programs (Soukup, Smithson, McCard, Kasper, Kreider, & Nicholas, 2009). The SHAPE Act also stipulates that the local government should be privy to any information on the progress made by students, or lack thereof, in implementing programs meant to entrench physical education activities. Obesity refers to the extreme accumulation of fat in the body’s tissues which can adversely affect the victim’s health. Childhood obesity is a very serious problem that has developed across the modern world’s populations. It was absent in previous centuries and is thought to be a result of advancements in the food production as well as medical fields which were experienced in the 20th century. Medically speaking, obesity is hazardous because it allows for no movement of calories within the body. It can result in the sluggish flow of blood and the buildup of plaque in the arteries of the body. Children grow obese when they consume too many calories by way of eating unhealthy foods that are filled with sugars and then neglect physical exercises of any kind (Hillman, Erickson, & Kramer, 2008). In the present modern world, there are many factors that work together to enable the trend of obesity among many children of school going age in most developed nations. Both the parents of such children usually have to work in order to maintain a certain lifestyle that allows for them to provide the best schools for their children. This means that the parents rarely have time to supervise what their children watch or eat. Such parents have even less time to prepare healthy meals or their children. This means that micro-waved meals become the preferred choice of dinner and lunch. At other times, the parents may purchase snacks or meals from drive-through establishments, which are quite tasty but not healthy. Children grow accustomed to the taste of such meals from a young age and so will find healthy foods such as fruits and vegetables quite tasteless even if they wish to eat them every day. Consuming such meals while leading a sedentary lifestyle that includes less physical education in schools, hours spent in an inert position in the classroom, and additional motionlessness when playing video games or watching television will undoubtedly result in obesity. Even when the parents are in the home early in the evening with their children, they are usually tired and therefore are more likely to allow the television to hold their children’s attention while they decompress from their own stresses or finish other chores around the house. Allowing their children to leave the house so that they can participate in physical activities might mean sitting outside with them so as to supervise them. Moreover, the only way through which parents can counter the development of obesity among their children, even in cases where they themselves are overweight and so may have passed on a predisposition towards obesity to their children, is by positively coaching their children to engage in constant physical exercises or activities while also eating healthy foods. Regular exercise is particularly beneficial for children because it contributes towards the preservation of a hormonal balance within the human body. There are chemical substances such as endorphins that are released when an individual takes part in exercises which help in releasing accumulated stress while also reducing the tendency to store fat. Cardiovascular exercises that trigger the burning of fat are also responsible for lessening the incidence of digestive problems while increasing the rate at which body building elements in food substances are drawn into the blood stream (HealthMPowers, 2012). Overweight children are much more likely to develop into being overweight adults. They also tend to have many problems in functioning on a daily basis. Firstly, overweight children have physical difficulties that stop them from fully enjoying their childhoods due to their weight. The develop, at a young age, health problems such as high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and high cholesterol. Carrying a lot of excess weight on a child’s frame can also gradually begin to affect the child’s breathing, sleep patterns, mood, joints, and energy levels. However, the psychological issues that affect obese children are probably even more damaging in the short-term. Children usually do not seek to guard their comments on others; even if their comments are hurtful. Obese children are often the victims of bullying as well as social discrimination. In childhood, children will ostracize anything or anyone that seem somewhat ‘different’ from the rest. Obese children are often forced to deal with this type of discrimination at a time when they may not even be aware of how to cope with it. They quickly develop low self esteem and often end up removing themselves from most social situations that they deem to be threatening. This means that they develop without acquiring the necessary social skill needed to navigate through different sections of society. One of the reasons why childhood obesity may be harder to deal with or tackle than adult obesity is because different methods are needed to confront the issue. Obesity in childhood has to be tackled in a delicate manner so as not to negatively affect the child’s self esteem. Obese adults are able to differentiate themselves from the disease to a greater extent from obese children; and so can handle more confrontational styles of counseling than obese children. Secondly, childhood obesity cannot be checked by extreme dieting; which is quite popular among obese or overweight adults. Children are still in the process of development; and so it is necessary for them to keep eating on a regular basis. Magical weight loss supplement or short-term diets would relieve the parents of obese children from have to take responsibility for ensuring that their children change their lifestyles in order to change their weight. The reality, however, is that the parents as well as schools have to work together in ensuring that obesity in children is checked. This means that parents have to stop trying to treat symptoms of obesity, which is commonly what is treated in obese adults, and instead deal with the root cause of childhood obesity. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle that includes plenty of physical activity and eating healthy foods is not an easy thing to implement, and calls for adopting a disciplined approach that will not only change the life of the affected child, but will also affect the life of his or her parents. This is why it can be difficult for parents to implement the necessary changes. It is not enough for the parents of an obese child to know what is necessary to combat obesity; they must also develop beliefs that the necessary steps will change their lives as well as those of their children. In Georgia state, the Presidential Fitness Award seeks to inspire this type of commitment in the parents of school-going children (Georgia Shape, 2012). Statement of the Problem The aim of this research is to determine how successful Fitnessgram has been in helping children who were formerly obese to value regular physical activity. Significance of the Problem It is a normal occurrence for many people to have slightly more weight on their body frames than is necessary, but when there is an unhealthy quantity of extra weight, the body can be adversely affected. Children usually physically grow within a given hereditary structure according to the levels of nutrition and exercise accessible to them. In many developed as well as developing nations today, this development is affected by the consumption of too much junk food which has no vitamins or minerals as well as by the lack of exercise (Martin, Ede, Morrow & Jackson, 2010). At present, there are large percentages of school going children in states such as Georgia where students are obese; and this is beginning to becoming a major health challenge for local governments. The sedentary lifestyles involved in sitting inactively in classrooms for long periods of time and the availability of different varieties of unhealthy fast food options has contributed to increasing levels of obesity. Children today also do not have the opportunity to engage in exercises such as walking long distances or playing overlong stretches of woodlands as was the case some decades ago Programs that seek to encourage physical activity in schools, such as those in Georgia are of great importance as they provide opportunities for children to be physically active within the established school, curriculum. It is also important, however, for children to be taught to develop a preference for healthy foods such as fruits and vegetables when they are still in impressionable ages. Another way in which obesity trends can be checked is by lobbying local as well as national governments to check the tendencies that the manufacturers of processed foods have to advertise their offerings directly to young children. The governments could also seek to support the increased production of healthy foods that do not require any additional additives before consumption. Research Questions (a) Does Fitnessgram affect in any way the attitudes of obese children towards junk food? (b) How accurate are body composition scores provided by Fitnessgram testing? (c) Do the body composition scores provided by Fitnessgram testing differ along gender or age group lines? Research Hypothesis (a) Fitnessgram testing can further encourage students to take an interest in activities that entail physical activity; thus propelling healthier lifestyles among school going children. (b) Fitnessgram testing can help in changing the types of physical education programs that most schools have so that there are more cardiovascular exercises as well as burn fat. Basic Assumptions (a) All the research participants will be students enrolled in different types of team sports. Limitations (a) The research will take place over a six week instructional period. (b) The research participants will be from 2 classes at Alcovy High school. (c) The intervention group will have 20 research participants while the control group will have 25 participants. (d) The intervention group will contain 18 male students while the control group will be made up of 10 female students. (e) The daily attendance of students will not be mandatory. Definitions of Terms Fitnessgram – This is a program for youth fitness assessment that comprises of testing for muscular endurance and strength, aerobic capacity, and body composition. (BMI) Body mass index – stands for a quantity of weight adjusted for height, and is calculated in kilograms In the Control Group, the students will gain instructions on how to develop physical fitness and maintain their physical health. In the Intervention Group, the students will gain Fitnessgram assessments that will show them how to better improve their physical health. References Ferguson, R. H., Keating, X. D., Bridges, D. M., Guan, J., & Chen, L. (2007). California Secondary School Physical Education Teachers’ Attitudes toward the Mandated Use of Fitnessgram. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 26, 161-176. Georgia Department of Education, (2011). The Georgia student health and physical education (SHAPE). Frequently asked questions. Retrieved from http://archives.gadoe.org/DMGetDocument.aspx/SHAPE%20and%20Fitness%20FAQ%202011.pdf?p=6CC6799F8C1371F64D6930538CA746B77462301CACFE547DE9A350 39137260E2&Type=D HealthMPowers, (2012). FitnessGram Overview. Retrieved from: http://www.gadoe.org/Curriculum-Instruction-and-Assessment/Curriculum-and-Instruction/Pages/Georgia-Fitness-Assessment-Manual-.aspx Hillman, C. H., Erickson, K. I., & Kramer, A. F. (2008). Be smart, exercise your heart: exercise effects on brain and cognition. Perspectives. 9, 58-65. Martin, S. B., Ede, A., Morrow, J., & Jackson, A. W. (2010). Statewide physical fitness testing: perspectives from the gym. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 81(3), 31-41 Mood, D. P., Jackson, A. W., & Morrow, J. R. (2007). Measurement of physical fitness and physical activity: fifty years of change. Measurement in Physical Education and Exercise Science, 11(4), 217-227 Soukup, G. J., Smithson, S., McCard, T., Kasper, K., Kreider, M., & Nicholas, T. (2009). Should Students be allowed to “test out” of Physical Education by meeting a Fitness Standard such as Fitnessgram? Journal of Physical Education, Recreation, & Dance, 80(6), 57-58. The Cooper Institute. (2012). Fitnessgram: Georgia. Retrieved from http://www.fitnessgram.net/georgia/ Read More