Baumgarten, Sam

Richardson, Karen

Virtual Commons - Bridgewater State University

Bridgewater ReviewVolume 30 | Issue 1 Article 10Jun-2011A Call to (Physical) Activity, A Call to ActionKaren RichardsonBridgewater State College, karen.richardson@bridgew.eduSam BaumgartenBridgewater State UniversityThis item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts.Recommended CitationRichardson, Karen and Baumgarten, Sam (2011). A Call to (Physical) Activity, A Call to Action. Bridgewater Review, 30(1), 25-27.Available at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/br_rev/vol30/iss1/10The prescription is exercise.The above quote can’t really be news toanyone reading it these days.The impor-tance of exercise or, to use the morepopular term, regular physical activity,has received much national publicitysince the early 1990’s. In 1992, theAmerican HeartAssociation approved a“Statement on Exercise,”declaring thebenefits of regular physical activity andciting physical inactivity as a risk factor incoronary artery disease.The HeartAssociation reaffirmed that statementagain in 1996 and, in 1999, the SurgeonGeneral’s Report on PhysicalActivityand Health further confirmed theimportant health benefits of regularphysical activity.More recently, thegovernment published a documentcalledHealthy People 2010,which sets aseries of goals for organizations aroundthe country engaged in creating health-ier people. Among the many goals thatthe document lays out,one of the mostsignificant is for individuals to“improvehealth, fitness, and quality of life throughdaily physical activity.”What does useful physical activity and ahealthier nation look like according tothe government? Creating a healthiercitizenry, according toHealthy People2010,means increasing the number ofpeople who engage in vigorous physicalactivity three or more days per weekfor 20 minutes or more per occasion;increasing the number of peopleengaged in moderate activity five daysper week for at least 30 minutes, andincreasing the number of peopleengaged in activities that improve mus-cular strength, endurance, and flexibility.Interestingly, an adjunct publication toHealthy People 2010, entitledHealthyCampus 2010:Making It Happen, devel-oped by theAmerican College HealthAssociation, adopted similar recommen-dations for college-age people.The“Making it Happen”after the colonmakes good sense. It is infinitely easierto get healthy and stay healthy than tohave to recover from illness or accidentlater in life. In a 2009 article publishedin Review of Research in Education,researchers argue that traditionalcollege-age students undergo significantlifestyle changes during their collegeyears that will impact their decisionsthroughout their lifespan.Good lifehabits need to start early, and yet thereis growing evidence that young peopleare, as a whole,moving away fromthe kinds of regular physical activitythat will help them prevent unnecessaryinjuries and debilitating and chronicdisease as they age. And the statistics forA Call to (Physical)Activity,A Call toActionKaren Richardson and Sam BaumgartenJonathan Shaw (2004) wrote the following intheHarvard Magazine:In the bottle before you is a pill, a marvel of modern medicine that willregulate gene transcription throughout your body, helping prevent heartdisease, stroke, diabetes, obesity, and 12 kinds of cancer—plus gallstonesand diverticulitis.Expect the pill to improve your strength and balanceas well as your blood lipid profile.Your bones will become stronger.You’ll grow new capillaries in your heart, your skeletal muscles, andyour brain, improving blood flow and the delivery of oxygen andnutrients.Your attention span will increase. If you have arthritis, yoursymptoms will improve.The pill will help you regulate your appetiteand you’ll probably find you prefer healthier foods.You’ll feel better,younger even, and you will test younger according to a variety ofphysiologic measures.Your blood volume will increase, and you’ll burnfats better.Even your immune system will be stimulated.There is justone catch:There’s no such pill.June 2011 25underrepresented populations are evenworse.Add to this the mounting evi-dence that there is more to a healthystudent body than strong bodies that agewell.Physical activity makes healthybrains, the kinds of brains we want in acollege classroom,and yet, long beforestudents find their way to our class-rooms, they are already experiencinghealth risks due to a lack of meaningfulphysical activity and education.Many young people in Massachusettsand across the nation are overweight orobese and do not get the recommendedamount of physical activity.Today’s col-lege students often have not had regularphysical education as part of their K-12education.According to a 2006 SchoolHealth Policies and Programs Study thatappeared in The Journal of School Health,only 8% of elementary schools and 6%of middle and high schools meet therecommended 150 minutes and 225minutes per week of physical activityrespectively as many schools have cut orreduced physical education programs.Due to the current financial crisis,manyschool districts opt either to reduce stu-dents’ physical education programs oreliminate them completely.Closer to home, in Massachusetts,K-12schools are required to have physicaleducation;however, there is no mini-mum amount of time spent in physicaleducation mandated by the state.ARobertWood Johnson Foundationstudy of Massachusetts schools foundthat 59% of Massachusetts high schoolstudents were not getting the recom-mended amount of daily physicalactivity, and 30% of Massachusetts 10to 17 year olds are obese or overweight.The statistics are equally disturbingfor young adults: between 25% and33% of college-aged students are over-weight or obese.We still have much to learn about theimpact of obesity and lack of fitness onacademic success.The research literatureis somewhat ambiguous about theway that obesity influences academicachievement,but there is evidence of adirect association between them.A 2007study involving white females, aged 14-17 indicated that a difference in weightof 50 to 60 pounds was found to beassociated with an 8-10% difference inGPA.Other studies have indicated thatchildren with weight problems are twiceas likely to be in special education andremedial classes. In a 2009 article in theJournal of School Health, a significant rela-tionship existed between physical fitnessand academic achievement on theMassachusetts state required MCAS test.The authors of the study found that theodds of passing the MCAS math andEnglish tests increased with the numberof physical fitness tests passed.Further,weight status was inversely related topassing the MCAS test. A 2005 reportindicates that overweight youth andadolescents are more likely to havemental health conditions (e.g., depres-sion, low self-esteem, anxiety disorders),which may serve as mediating factors foran overweight child’s poor performancein school.The connection between successfulacademic performance and physicalhealth is an intriguing idea.There is nowa body of research demonstrating thekey role of exercise in the functioning ofthe brain.Dr. John Medina, a molecularbiologist, published a text entitled BrainRules in 2008.Brain rule number oneis that “Exercise Boosts Brain Power.”Medina points to evidence showing thatthose engaged in lifelong physical activ-ity demonstrate an“astonishing eleva-tion in cognitive performance comparedwith those who are sedentary.”Exerciseimproves those brain functions that areconnected to academic success.Another well-known and respectedresearcher,Dr. John Ratey, clinical asso-ciate professor of psychiatry at HarvardMedical School,has continually trum-peted the connection between regularphysical activity and brain functioning.In 2002,Ratey published A User’s Guideto the Brain:Perception,Attention, and theFourTheaters of the Brain and, in 2008,he completed his latest work,Spark:The Revolutionary New Science of Exerciseand the Brain.We are born movers,Ratey points out,and yet,unfortunately,we’ve engineeredmovement out of our lives. In his thor-ough review of the research that is outthere,Ratey argues several points thatsupport the fact that for peak brainperformance,our bodies need vigorousactivity.Exercise increases and balances26 Bridgewater Reviewimportant neurotransmitters like sero-tonin, norepinephrine and dopamine.It influences the cellular processes in thebrain, fostering the processing of newinformation. It elevates levels of Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor or BDNF—what Ratey calls “Miracle-Gro” forthe brain.BDNF is essential for thegrowth of neurons and the developmentof synaptic connections, the key ele-ments in learning.Ratey also goes onto document the positive effects of reg-ular activity in reducing stress, anxiety,depression, and attention deficit, all ofwhich may hinder learning.As a college community we might ask,why do we care if our students engagein physical activity as part of theircollege experience? One answer maybe that as educators we care that ourstudents understand the connectionbetween physical activity and goodhealth both in the short term and overa lifespan.Poor health, associated withinactivity, can negate many of the bene-fits of higher education on the careertrajectories and socioeconomic statusof students, but even more so on lowincome and minority students.Obesity and physical activity patternsvary by race, gender, and other socialfactors.For example, research indicatesthat ethnic minorities and children fromlow-income families have significantlyhigher obesity rates than their whiteand more affluent peers.Among allchildren,obesity rates have increased,but the rise was highest amongAfrican-American children.Obesity for minor-ity and low-income populations isfurther affected by the poor quality ofschools, lack of neighborhood safety,and lack of access to parks, inadequatepublic transportation and lack ofgrocery stores in communities.Bridgewater State University has showna deep commitment to social justiceby working to improve educationalopportunities for all students.The recentgrant-funded initiative called ProjectCompass reveals a commitment toclosing the achievement gap amongmajority groups and students fromhistorically underrepresented groups:students of color, students who are firstin family to attend college, and studentswho are financially at risk—groupsthat make up over 60% of the entireBSU population.If we are to provide a quality educationfor all students then we must also focuson the intersection of physical healthand educational disparities.Researchshows that students who experiencepoor health early in their lives havedescending trajectories in academicand socioeconomic status that continuesinto adulthood.Poor health impactedsignificantly by obesity, disproportion-ately influences low-income andunderrepresented students who are thepopulations of particular interest at BSUwith programs such as Project Compass.We ask our BSU colleagues to considera change to the Core Curriculum thatwould include a sincere commitmentto physical education. If students wererequired to engage in physical activityclasses over at least two semesters atBSU, then all students would have theopportunity to engage in physical activ-ity in a safe and supportive environment,which many under-represented studentsare unable to do in their home commu-nities. Students would have the oppor-tunity to select among diverse activities,designed to meet students’ needs andinterests,with clear expectations forlearning.Promoting and educatingstudents about physical activity shouldbe seen as a means to redress widerinequalities in aspects of health (e.g.,diabetes, obesity).This includes recogni-tion of the barriers to physical activity,increasing the knowledge about physicalactivity, and promoting motivation toengage in physical activity among ourdisadvantaged groups.While the inclusion of a three-creditrequirement, spread over time so as toencourage on-going engagement, is notnecessarily the ultimate solution to theissue of chronic physical inactivity,ora guarantee that students will remainactive, it will provide a clear and strongstatement that Bridgewater StateUniversity believes that regular physicalactivity is essential to effective living.Just as we, the faculty and administra-tion, decide that students should beaware of and knowledgeable in history,math,philosophy, art, and science,with-out any guarantee that such exposurewill have lifelong impact,we shouldmake the firm statement that a fullyeducated person is aware of the needfor physical activity and has developedmovement skills.The school environment has enormouspotential to educate students and to pro-vide resources to support students’ phys-ical well-being through physical activityclasses.Researchers have found that theconsistent influences on physical activitypatterns among adults and young peopleinclude confidence in one’s ability toengage in physical activity, enjoyment ofphysical activity, positive beliefs aboutthe benefits of activity, and a lack ofperceived barriers to being active. Acommitment to physical education andactivity in the lives of our students nowtranslates into a lifetime of improvedquality of life.Let us offer our students,in our classrooms now,and as graduateslater, the myriad benefits of physicalactivity to both brain and body.Karen Richardson is anAssociate Professorand Sam Baumgarten is a Professor in theDepartment of MovementArts,HealthPromotion and Leisure Studies.June 2011 27

A Call to (Physical) Activity, A Call to Action

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