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The Bad News About Couch Potatoes
An Excerpt
By Rae Pica
hysical education? That's being cut due to budget constraints and a nationwide fixation on "academic accountability" that's trickling down even to the preschool level.
And, of course, movement in the classroom is generally forbidden (children who have a tendency to move in classrooms are all too often labeled hyperactive and prescribed Ritalin). As mentioned, even in preschool programs, which once offered young children a chance to learn through play, early childhood professionals are being caught between what they know about how young children learn and pressure from parents to concentrate on "preparing children for first-grade academics."
In one study, researchers observed a classroom of preschool children (normally the most active of kids) for a period of six hours, during which the mean activity scores ranged from 1.96 to 2.42 and no sustained periods of Level 3 activity could be found. Even during a 30-minute session of free play, the most active children didn't attain a mean rating of 3. The punch line is that Level 3 was equal to a moderate level of activity, like a slow walk! With the exception of moving from one activity to another, the most movement observed during this six-hour period was the wiggling of children in their chairs.
Once the regular school day ends, even those children not signed up for extracurricular activities – or without a lot of homework – don't have the opportunity to play like we did. Some are enrolled in after-school programs so they don't have to be home alone. Many of these programs, due to the large numbers of children involved, prefer to offer sedentary activities like arts and crafts, as opposed to body-moving ones. Those children who do go home are
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