A failing grade

But we are failing our children miserably. In the United States, less than one In four children get at least an hour of physical activity a day. Girls exercise even less than boys, and older children are more sedentary than younger children. According to the World Health Organization, the picture worldwide is generally worse with more than 81 percent of children not getting an hour of daily physical activity. Many factors are to blame. Children today spend more time glued to screens both large and small, they walk less often to school, in some neighborhoods parks and streets are dangerous, and growing numbers of schools have let physical education slide to paltry levels. While most school districts require some physical education, only a shockingly tiny fraction provide enough. Just 11 percent of elementary school districts in the United States have regular classroom physical activity breaks during the school day; among high schools, the percentage plunges to 2 percent. And, true to my own experience, students typically spend more than half their time in classroom physical activities inactively, sitting on a bench or waiting in line to bat or dribble a ball. To make matters worse, competitive sports in many schools are exclusionary, leading to what Bradley Cardinal terms an “inverted” system in which the further students advance, the likelier they are to be sidelined or eliminated. All in all, we face a dire epidemic of physical inactivity among youth.—Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do is Healthy and Rewarding, 275