News Briefs

Phys ed builds strong minds, too

Mar 27, 2008 1:58 PM

Note to the number-crunchers at Tweed: Want to improve school performance? Don’t just stress reading and math alone. Educate the whole child.

And include physical education.

That’s what a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports. The study, “Physical Education and Academic Achievement in Elementary School: Data From the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study,” which was published in the American Journal of Physical Health, looked at a sample of 5,000 kindergartners from 1998 to 2004 in terms of time spent in physical education and their academic achievement in mathematics and reading. The authors found what they called “a small but significant benefit for academic achievement in mathematics and reading” for girls enrolled in at least 70 minutes of phys ed per week, though they found no differences among boys.

Their conclusion: physical education is an academic benefit, at least for girls, and fears that moderate amounts of athletics interfere with scholarship are overblown. One report author speculated that a higher level of physical activity might be needed to yield higher achievement in boys because boys are commonly more active than girls.

Physical education is often linked to academic achievement for both physiological and behavioral reasons. In addition to physical changes, such as increased blood flow to the brain, exercise programs can foster positive classroom behaviors through better classroom participation and concentration skills and decrease disruptive behavior.

Currently, just 12.6 percent of students in grades K-5 meet the Healthy People 2010 objective of daily participation in phys ed.

American Journal of Physical Health, February

USA Today, March 4