Teaming up helps bring down childhood overweight

While home environments can be difficult to change, children can also be reached through schools. Unfortunately, many physical education classes today aren’t really that physical. For every half-hour of P.E., children are vigorously active for only 4 minutes, according to a January 2007 policy brief commissioned by The California Endowment and co-authored by Toni Yancey, co-director of the UCLA School of Public Health’s Center to Eliminate Health Disparities. Again, the impact is worst in the poorest communities. Besides contributing to children’s low physical activity levels, schools are exacerbating the other part of the weight-gain equation. UC studies have shown that many schools are full of fast food and soda, tempting children to consume too many empty calories (see page 124).