As the weather gets nicer the number stay the same. It seems that students have become accustom to doing nothing and watching tv. The students are not getting anymore exercise in nice weather as bad weather.

Study Identifies Four New Genetic Markers For Severe Childhood Obesity

Study Identifies Four New Genetic Markers For Severe Childhood Obesity

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2013/04/12/study-finds-genetic-markers-for-severe-childhood-obesity/#ixzz2QSqmAqAU

Internet generation revisited

The average 8-18 year old student spends 7 hours a day on TV, video games, computer, phone.
http://www.kff.org/entmedia/entmedia012010nr.cfm

The University of Maine also says that children over the age of 8 spend 7 hours a day.
http://umaine.edu/publications/4100e/

I feel that the validity of the statement I made that this group of 7^th graders will be the first to have spent on average 5 hours a day with one form of entertainment (computer, TV, video games) was called into question.  I decided to contact the person that gave us that information and she is sending the research done by Oregon State University in partnership with Oregon State Board of Education. I asked Mrs. Golden some questions I had. One was everything I read only talks about 8 years old and above. She told me that they are looking at this as a generational problem. Every generation gets worse than the one before. The parents of today’s 7^th graders basically allowed the TV to raise their kids. Most of these 7^th graders are spending 7-8 hours a day and that over their lifetime today’s 7^th grade class has spent really closer to 6 hours a day involved in entertainment. Children born 2011 and up they expect 6-7 hours to be the average once the student reaches graduation, the tablet being a big contributor to the growth. I have found what I can online to support my statement. I have found nothing that disproves or calls into question the statement made.

 

Ny Times 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/education/20wired.html?_r=0

This first article I found that talks about children. NY Daily news says that children over the age of 2 spend 34 hours a week watching TV. That 34 hours just on TV.
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/americans-spend-34-hours-week-watching-tv-nielsen-numbers-article-1.1162285

Michelle Obama Challenges Kids With Lunch Contest

The first lady is challenging kids to eat healthier. I am not sure how all school lunches are but ours is like prison food. There might be one good item to eat but thats on a good day. The school lowered the price of teachers lunches to 2.25$ if the school paid me 2.25$ I wounot eat it.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/michelle-obama-challenges-kids-lunch-contest-18869094

The Internet generation.

This class of 7th graders will be the first class that their entire life they have on average spent 5 hours a day either playing video games, surfing the web, and/or watching tv.

Physical Education

The average student gets less than 20 minutes of physical exercise a day. This is true for k-12th grades. We know that good physical health impacts positively toward mental health so why does school districts not require more physical education? It seems to be a numbers game. Schools are graded on Math and English  scores not physical fitness. What has been done to change this? It seems very little the federal government has millions of dollars in grants available to schools that make physical fitness a priority. This blog is being written on an IPad provided by a federal grant. Until there is punishment for poor student fitness most school districts will continue to but health on the back burner.

Make Your School Healthier

For the first time in 10 years the obesity rate of students in the U.S. has gone down.http://carbsyndrome.com/tag/obesity-rates-going-down-in-mass/   Thanks to the increase in nutrition education and a national push for physical education in the schools. The rate of childhood obesity is still horrendous. Health of students should be the number one goal of all educators and administrators.

I recently came across http://kidshealth.org/teen/ this is a great website that discusses kidshealth. You have to log in but it is a simple process.

Many school districts across the U.S. are taking unhealthy vending machines out of the schools. This includes soda machines. The downside is companies such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi pay the schools to keep these machines in. If you look at most scoreboards from the previous 10 years you will see that scoreboard was donated by Coca-Cola or Pepsi. Some believe that the money these companies bring in is more important than the negative health aspects of the Soda. The link http://www.care2.com/greenliving/9-disturbing-side-effects-of-soda.html gives the reader 9 disturbing facts about Soda.