School boards and educational administrators are the bottom line decision makers who determine the high priorities, low priorities, and no priorities in any school system. And for a variety of reasons, there’s not a school system in the nation today who has not focused in like a laser beam on academic performance as their top priority. School administrators are judged first and foremost on the academic performance of the students attending their schools…so that becomes job one for everyone right now.
Anti-social behaviors such as bullying, teasing, and taunting have also received a lot of attention recently, so many school administrators have put a spotlight this issue as well. A third issue that’s garnered a boatload of attention over the past several years is childhood obesity. In fact the US Surgeon General has gone so far as to label childhood obesity “America’s number one health threat.” And first lady Michelle Obama has taken up childhood obesity as her cause of causes.
Prioritizing Childhood Obesity in School…Not
But unlike academic performance and anti-social behavior/bullying, it’s almost impossible to find a school administrator anywhere who has made the childhood obesity epidemic a top priority. A simple Google search of school district websites in any geographical area will confirm that notable void.
Even if you go to the Physical Education page of the website you’d be lucky to find this issue mentioned in any significant way, let alone prioritized. On the other hand when administrators’ (i.e. bosses) priorities conflict with, and effectively crowd out childhood obesity prevention, what are Physical Educators to do? Their hands are effectively tied if they want to keep their jobs.
Despite Being Linked to Academics and Bullying
However, over the past several years studies have linked childhood obesity directly to poor academic performance as well as to anti-social behaviors. Moreover, childhood obesity has been shown to undermine academic performance and to exacerbate behaviors like bullying, taunting, and teasing. So, when obesity decreases, academic performance naturally improves, and anti-social behaviors are naturally reduced.
This being the case, why would any educational administrator in their right mind avoid taking systematic, preventative action against childhood obesity immediately if not sooner? In doing so they’d get three big hits for the price of one.
The Educational Administrator’s Trifecta!
First they’d be celebrated for actively tackling a dreaded disease, a horrible disability that’s affecting millions of children, and that has profound implications for their adulthood. Secondly, by successfully taking this first step, academic performance automatically improves, while anti-social behaviors are automatically reduced. If I was a bookie I’d label that “the educational administrator’s trifecta.”
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