Fat land : how Americans became the fattest people in the world by Greg Crister Page A
Authors: Greg Crister
Tags: obesity
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its idealistic but — and everyone knew this — highly unattainable group goals.
John Cates, then on the physical education faculty at the University of California at San Diego, saw the writing on the wall — but the problem, as he saw it, was not the fitness boom, it was the PE establishment itself. He was particularly frustrated by organizations like the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD). "We as physical educators were not savvy enough to deal with the change politically," he says. "We had numbers and results, tied to reducing absenteeism and all that, but that case was never marshaled. We were not politically savvy people. I mean, Jane Fonda? Richard Simmons? Give me a break. What a joke. We — AAHPERD — could have made those [fitness] tapes. But the leadership said, no, let other people do it."
With public fitness now seriously endangered, the effects of Proposition 13 cut ever deeper. Overnight the new law sliced $6.8 billion from the state budget. Even with remedial legislation meant to soften Proposition 13's short-term impact, that meant a 25 percent reduction in the schools' share of taxes. Local school boards were now charged with making do. That usually meant making more cuts. By 1980 average PE class sizes had doubled. The percentage of seniors taking PE dipped again, to 43 percent. Enrollment in sports teams dropped in 88 percent of schools, and almost half of all schools eliminated at least one team entirely. In 1983 the legislature codified what had been a reality for nearly half a decade: Students now had to pass only two years of physical education. To this there was little parental opposition.
Which was understandable. For one, many boomers did not exactly harbor the fondest memories of PE, California style. Many recalled it as a time, perhaps the last, when they were unfavorably compared to other people — as in the time they were the last to be chosen to play on the popular kids' team, or the
WHY THE CALORIES STAYED ON OUR BODIES
time when, nagging under the scorching sun, they had pooped out only halfway through the calisthenics, or the time they had clearly not won the Presidential Fitness Award, despite really trying at the pull-up bar. No, that wasn't for their child.
And fitness wasn't an important task for schools to perform anyway, was it? After all, there were more important priorities, especially in a nation that had now fallen behind Japan in productivity growth and job creation. Such was the general sentiment, especially after the 1983 report "A Nation at Risk." The study, which emphasized American children's lack of adequate science and math training and its impact on economic opportunity, had become a mantra for the back to basics movement, and in California (and, eventually, around the nation) that had meant anything but physical education. As a 1984 study by the California Department of Education concluded, "In a time of financial strain, declining academic test scores and strong pressure to go 'back to basics,' local school boards appear to have decided to reduce physical education. . . . PE teachers, budgets, enrollment and class size have been sacrificed in favor of 'higher' priorities." The sentiment was clearly not limited to the Golden State. By decade's end, Illinois was the only state to require daily physical fitness education.
What fitness opportunities remained for children grew increasingly class-based. In the nation's more affluent suburbs, where private gym membership by adults had been soaring, a new force emerged: sports clubs for children. Modeled in part on the old Pop Warner and Little League programs of the 1950s, the new clubs, most notably soccer, added a new twist: the notion that "everyone plays." To the boomer parent, psychically singed by the old PE, this was the place for Junior. The new soccer leagues were driven by the enlightened founders and executives of the American Youth Soccer Organization, or
John Cates, then on the physical education faculty at the University of California at San Diego, saw the writing on the wall — but the problem, as he saw it, was not the fitness boom, it was the PE establishment itself. He was particularly frustrated by organizations like the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD). "We as physical educators were not savvy enough to deal with the change politically," he says. "We had numbers and results, tied to reducing absenteeism and all that, but that case was never marshaled. We were not politically savvy people. I mean, Jane Fonda? Richard Simmons? Give me a break. What a joke. We — AAHPERD — could have made those [fitness] tapes. But the leadership said, no, let other people do it."
With public fitness now seriously endangered, the effects of Proposition 13 cut ever deeper. Overnight the new law sliced $6.8 billion from the state budget. Even with remedial legislation meant to soften Proposition 13's short-term impact, that meant a 25 percent reduction in the schools' share of taxes. Local school boards were now charged with making do. That usually meant making more cuts. By 1980 average PE class sizes had doubled. The percentage of seniors taking PE dipped again, to 43 percent. Enrollment in sports teams dropped in 88 percent of schools, and almost half of all schools eliminated at least one team entirely. In 1983 the legislature codified what had been a reality for nearly half a decade: Students now had to pass only two years of physical education. To this there was little parental opposition.
Which was understandable. For one, many boomers did not exactly harbor the fondest memories of PE, California style. Many recalled it as a time, perhaps the last, when they were unfavorably compared to other people — as in the time they were the last to be chosen to play on the popular kids' team, or the
WHY THE CALORIES STAYED ON OUR BODIES
time when, nagging under the scorching sun, they had pooped out only halfway through the calisthenics, or the time they had clearly not won the Presidential Fitness Award, despite really trying at the pull-up bar. No, that wasn't for their child.
And fitness wasn't an important task for schools to perform anyway, was it? After all, there were more important priorities, especially in a nation that had now fallen behind Japan in productivity growth and job creation. Such was the general sentiment, especially after the 1983 report "A Nation at Risk." The study, which emphasized American children's lack of adequate science and math training and its impact on economic opportunity, had become a mantra for the back to basics movement, and in California (and, eventually, around the nation) that had meant anything but physical education. As a 1984 study by the California Department of Education concluded, "In a time of financial strain, declining academic test scores and strong pressure to go 'back to basics,' local school boards appear to have decided to reduce physical education. . . . PE teachers, budgets, enrollment and class size have been sacrificed in favor of 'higher' priorities." The sentiment was clearly not limited to the Golden State. By decade's end, Illinois was the only state to require daily physical fitness education.
What fitness opportunities remained for children grew increasingly class-based. In the nation's more affluent suburbs, where private gym membership by adults had been soaring, a new force emerged: sports clubs for children. Modeled in part on the old Pop Warner and Little League programs of the 1950s, the new clubs, most notably soccer, added a new twist: the notion that "everyone plays." To the boomer parent, psychically singed by the old PE, this was the place for Junior. The new soccer leagues were driven by the enlightened founders and executives of the American Youth Soccer Organization, or
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