One of the biggest topics of children in America is the argument of obesity. The population of childhood obesity in America is increasing and physical education is not helping as much as it should. Around 32.6% of children aged 6-11 years are overweight and 18% are obese in the year 2009-2010 (Ogden et al., 2012). These numbers are predicted to increase in the coming years and it does not all have to do with the physical education. Obesity can be developed other ways that does not have to deal with physical activity. A child is very likely to get obese if either one or both of the parents are obese because of genetics. A genetic disability of becoming obese is having leptin deficiency. For example, leptin tells the body when it should …show more content…
The U.S. Surgeon General states that schools should be urged to have daily mandatory physical activity that should be at least 150 minutes per week for elementary school children (U.S. D.H.H.S., 2010). Normally in elementary schools, physical education does not consist of a lot of average to intense physical activity. Another issue is that these same children who would have this much physical activity in school would probably not have any other sort of physical activity outside of school. Studies show that if physical education is optional, only physically active students would be the ones who would enroll, and this would leave the inactive students with less physical activity during the school day. It also depends on the quality of physical education program at schools. Schools can have the same allotted time for physical activity, but it depends on if the schools have the right facilities and equipment to get average to intense physical activity done. If the school does not have sufficient funds for physical activity, the students would not be able to complete the same type of activities that is recommended for physical activity. Therefore, physical education does not prevent obesity to a certain