Monitoring Physical Activity: Pediatrician Commitment and Guidance

Pediatricians have an all-important, professional responsibility to provide solutions for the prevention and treatment of diseases in children.  This responsibility, nonetheless, should be shared.  Physical activity (PA) is an integral component to the well-being of children and needs to be promoted at home, in the community and at school (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2006).  Working with parents and community organizations in a greater capacity, with a particular emphasis on education, pediatricians can build upon their commitment to have a stronger impact on not only their profession but also on the health and well-being of the nation’s children. 

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) should be applauded for their continued research and recommendations to prevent and treat diseases in children, such as their recommendation for children to watch no more than 2 hours of quality television programming per day (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2001).  However, with the advancement of new biotechnologies, pediatricians can and should do more on the education and prevention side of getting more children active and engaged in physical activity. 

One strategy for accomplishing this is for pediatricians to make a commitment to informing parents about physical activity opportunities for their children.  Opportunities could include recreational and sport clubs in the local community, community-based organizations offering physical activity programming and resources such as videos and books that children can engage to improve physical activity knowledge.  Partnering with the community and making information available in their offices can have a collaborative impact.  For the pediatrician they will be accomplishing their professional objective of providing solutions to improve the health of the patient while all stakeholders will be impacted economically and altruistically.   

Another way that pediatricians can assist and commit is by monitoring their patients’ physical activity levels through the use of accelerometers, a biotechnology monitoring device that tracks physical activity.  Many of these devices are relatively inexpensive and provide a great means for parents and children to become physically active together.  The integration of technology and physical activity can work together, in this instance, rather than competing against one another for a child’s time.  Coupled with the resources in the community, these devices can help pediatricians and parents track where, when, why and how children are engaging in healthy, active behaviors.  This information can then lead to better informed decisions, recommendations and ultimately policies to improve the health and well-being of the youth population. 

Pediatricians, parents and community organizations all have an equal stake in the health and well-being of children.  This stake can be maximized to reach its full value and potential if all three work together to create solutions and opportunities for young people to engage in physical activity.  The advent of new technology makes partnership between these three respective groups feasible and attractive.  Accelerometers and other physical activity tracking and monitoring devices can help inform and educate on physical activity trends so that solutions can be created to get children more engaged in activity.  The physical, social, intellectual and emotional well-being of our children is important and all of us can do our part to help.  

Different Encounters: A Grassroots Education Program

Different Encounters (DE) started as a conversation between two friends playing weekend basketball in the neighborhood of Jackson Heights in New York City, New York.  What started as a simple dialogue around helping a few youth learn the skills of shooting, dribbling and passing has now unfolded into a wonderful design to educate adolescent youth in areas that will allow them to be successful throughout adolescence and into adulthood. 

The integration of physical, health and character education will hopefully establish a sense of purpose and value in the young people who experience the program.  At DE, we want to provide the young people an experience that will help guide them in making decisions and choices as well as expose them to a ‘different’ mindset, a mindset that emerges through in-depth conversation and dialogue with the program staff members.  The DE staff members bring a diverse, different viewpoint to the program but are similar to the participants in that everyone shares a love for the game of basketball.  This singular connection allows a mutual respect in which staff and participants can learn from each other while also gaining mutually beneficial rewards in the process. 

The rewards for the young people are improved self-confidence, greater self-awareness, increased physical activity and structured opportunities to learn new information, meet new people and to have fun playing a game that they love.  For the program staff, the rewards are realized in knowing that they have given back a portion of their time in helping a young person learn valued lessons that will lead to making better informed decisions, which ultimately could result in the improvement of society on a number of measures. 

Though still in its infancy, DE realizes its usefulness in spreading love among the members of humanity, regardless of age, through a common interest and passion, which in this case happens to be a bright orange ball.  DE endeavors to develop a model that can be reproduced the globe over to inspire people to be active, engaged and good-hearted.  

Could Attitude toward Physical Education and Activity be the Key that Fits for Opening the Door to Academic Success? Let’s Turn It and Find Out

In a recent New York Times blog entitled How Physical Fitness May Promote School Success, Gretchen Reynolds provides commentary and support for the idea that a more physically fit student performs better in the academic classroom and on academic standardized tests.  She references a large-scale school study on physical activity and academic achievement as well as a smaller, more controlled study on learning and the impact of physical activity to validate the premise that a physically fit student is a better learner.  So the question that one must ask if this premise is in fact true is:  why don’t more legislators, administrators, parents and concerned citizens of this great country create more opportunities during the school day to get students moving and physically active? 

While there is no simple answer to this question, there are a number of issues that can be seen as contributing to the dilemma of getting students more physically active and engaged.  An often opinioned reason for the lack of physical activity opportunities is the need for more time on subjects such as a reading and math due to global competitiveness.  Other reasons include financial limitations, space constraints and the availability and access to parks, recreational activities and community resources after-school.  All of these reasons hold value but not quite enough to fully and sufficiently answer the question of why more students aren't engaging in more physical activity. 

Perhaps the missing, essential ingredient to the solution of getting students more physically engaged in activity is to improve their attitudes toward physical activity and education.  To improve student attitudes towards something that should be a part of their everyday lives is not an effortless or rudimentary task but one that can be solved.  By placing a greater emphasis on the importance of one’s body during the school day through physical education classes and instruction is key.  Students live in an advanced society and are now forced to choose between an abundance of activities and tasks to engage, mainly as a result of technology development.  While these widgets and gadgets often spark creativity and intellectual performance, they also have created a sedentary by-product of individuals who are now at risk for issues concerning their physical and intellectual development. 

Placing a greater emphasis on physical education programs and the activities, resources and programs that they are associated with, our country may just increase students’ attitudes toward physical activity and changing their lifestyle habits and choices.  Providing them with greater balance in their lives can make them not only healthier but also improve their chances for school and academic success.

Double Impact: Interscholastic Athletics Advances Connections On the Field and Off

During a time of fiscal uncertainty, global competitiveness and a national health care crisis, perhaps one place for the United States of America (USA) to turn is to physical activity and the physical education classroom. Countless scientific studies have show that there is a positive association between physical activity and cognition as well as an association between physical activity and health (Warburton, Nicol & Bredin, 2006). 

However, despite what we know and what the research shows about the benefits of physical activity and education, only six states (Arkansas, Delaware, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah) provide funding for professional development for physical education teachers (Key State Physical Education Policies and Practices).  If states are not preparing physical education teachers, then who is providing the necessary instruction and education for individuals, particularly America's youth, to engage in healthy and active lifestyles? 

Now more than ever we need to reestablish the role and importance of the physical education profession and  interscholastic athletics.  To a degree, education and athletics have been disconnected by a number of different factors that include the proliferation of private organizations dedicated to the promotion and development of sports, an education system focused on a common core that does not include physical education and a division between physical education teachers and interscholastic sport coaches.  This disconnection between education and athletics has marginalized the impact of physical activity not only on intellectual and academic achievement but also on the 'pureness of the physical activity endeavor' that is athletics. 

Academics and athletics operating as competing opposites in their own distinct vacuums is not good for today's youth or for the nation as a whole.  When academics and athletics are brought back together and elevated to the position that they once held, a cultural existence that connected people in a community and neurons in an academic setting, then our nation will be in a better position to master our fiscal, global competitiveness and health care problems.