EDUCATIONALLY SPEAKING -- Gay Geiser-Sandoval

At its last meeting, the school board adopted the district’s 100-page

Physical Education Standards for kindergartners through 12th-graders. The

detail is incredible. The book provides the sociological, historical,

psychological, physiological, and biomechanical standards for each grade

level of physical education. If the students in this district followed

the standards, they would be physically active for life.

Unfortunately, that’s not the reality. By seventh or eighth grade, it

seems like about 15% of the kids have decided they love sports and

participate in them all of the time. The other 85% have become turned off

and try to figure out how to get through the two years of required

physical education in high school with as little effort as possible. Many

don’t even dress out.

I think part of the problem is that high school sports have lost focus of

their role in keeping kids physically fit. Instead, coaches see winning

as the only goal. Those who aren’t as talented or dedicated soon see that

there is no place for them. There is nothing after school for the student

who wants physical activity or the camaraderie of team sports without the

total commitment to the high school team. Why don’t we try sports without

coaches or referees? Just have equipment available after school and a

supervisor to make sure no one gets hurt. Then, let them play ultimate

Frisbee or inner tube water polo. Why not have some balls for 3-on-3

basketball, flag football, soccer, croquet or sandlot volleyball? How

about building skateboard parks on campus? If we don’t come up with some

alternatives, we will have created a generation of couch potatoes by the

10th grade.

One alternative that doesn’t sounds promising is coming from Coca-Cola.

The company is recruiting the student body officers of our local schools

to be their ambassadors. The cost to Coke is a free lunch and some

6-packs. They also provide free product at school dances. But should

student leaders be turned into soft drink hawkers? A recent newspaper

article touted the efforts corporate America is making to get in the

school house door. A school district in San Jose signed a 10-year

contract to give Pepsi products exclusive rights on campus. The district

will receive $3.5 million or more, depending on how much Pepsi the

students drink.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the proportion

of obese Americans rose from 12% in 1991 to 17.9% in 1998. Obesity is the

second-leading cause of preventable deaths after smoking, and a

devastating public health threat. The causes are a lack of exercise and

the consumption of fat-laden fast food. When I visit secondary schools,

students are lined up to buy sugar water from Pepsi or Coke and food

provided by Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. These foods are high in fat and

sugar, and low in nutritional value.

In the district’s quest to get its share of the students’ food dollar,

have we forgotten the need to encourage good nutrition? Can we really

believe the board’s recent decision to add an extra quarter of health

class will counteract this national trend, which puts our students’ lives

at risk?

I know the argument that kids won’t eat good food, so if we don’t have

fast food choices on campus, the kids will split for places that do.

However, when kids come to my house, I make home-made hot bread and have

fruit. It is devoured in minutes. Why don’t we make that food available,

and take away the bad stuff, just as moms do at home?

If kids don’t get healthy meals at home, isn’t it even more important

that they do at school? Why is the district safety committee so worried

about keeping our kids safe from external forces when the eating patterns

that kids establish in the school cafeteria are putting them most at

risk? When those patterns are coupled with the lack of physical activity,

our schools have failed in keeping the body healthy, irrespective of what

might be stuffed into their brains.

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Channel One is watched by 8 million schoolchildren each day. In exchange

for free television to schools, kids are forced to watch 2 minutes of

commercials each day. Are agreements with such companies a way to solve

our schools’ financial woes and supply needed goods? Andrew Hagelshaw of

the Center for Commercial-Free Public Education asks: “Is it ethical for

community leaders to buy and sell our students’ attention? Are we going

to treat our students as commodities we can barter in exchange for

resources, or treat them as precious resources themselves?”

His group points out that taxpayers pay for the time students are at

school, by virtue of salaries, goods and facilities’ costs. If a

student’s time is spent being exposed to advertising, aren’t the

taxpayers paying the price? Researchers recently calculated that the time

spent by U.S. students watching Channel One advertising costs U.S.

taxpayers $1.8 billion a year.

As the cola war front comes to our town, let’s not let our students be

the casualties. Let’s rethink what happens at lunch and after school and

how that affects our students. Let’s rethink the price we pay if we let

corporate America into the schoolhouse doors.

GAY GEISER-SANDOVAL is a Costa Mesa resident. Her column runs Mondays.

She can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].