In Defense of Dodgeball:Getting All Kids to Move

Spring 2015 Teacher to Teacher ConferenceUNC-Charlotte College of Education

Tamara E. ReynoldsFranklin School of Innovation

Asheville, NC

“He stopped just a minute in the pantry door. Mother was straining the milk, at the far end of the pantry; her back was toward him. The shelves on both sides were loaded with good things to eat. Big yellow cheeses were stacked there, and large brown cakes of maple sugar, and there were crusty loaves of fresh-baked bread, and four large cakes, and one whole shelf full of pies.” - Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder

A cohort study recently published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, followed 334,161 men and women and concluded that "Approximately 9.2 million deaths occurred in European men and women in 2008, of which—according to our estimates from the current study—676,000 deaths may be attributable to physical inactivity compared with 337,000 deaths attributable to obesity."

In short, not moving kills more people than obesity.

“Researchers from Stanford University discovered that the number of US adult women who reported no physical activity jumped from 19.1% in 1994 to 51.7% in 2010. For men, the number increased from 11.4% in 1994 to 43.5% in 2010. During the period, average BMI has increased across the board, with the most dramatic rise found among young women ages 18-39.” - Less exercise, not more calories, responsible for expanding waistlines

As teachers, why should we care?

Spark by John J. Ratey tells the story of a school district in Naperville, Illinois that has transformed learning and test scores through their P.E. program.

Students participating in a before-school exercise program improved their reading comprehension by 17 percent over the course of a semester as compared to 10.7 percent for students who did not participate in the program.

On the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, Naperville’s 8th graders scored first in the world on the science section of the test and 6th in the world on the math section. U.S. students overall were 18th in science and 19th on math.

“Cognitive flexibility improves after just one thirty-five-minute treadmill session at either 60 percent or 70 percent of maximum heart rate.”

“Jogging thirty minutes just two or three times a week for twelve weeks improved executive function.”

“The evidence isn’t perfect, but really, your regimen has to include skill acquisition and aerobic exercise.”

“A switch is flipped, sometime in our lives, where movement turns from joy to obligation, from recess to a workout. Movement, which was the territory of the body, switches to the territory of the brain. The bummer is that movement then switches from being a tension release valve to being just another stress. It becomes a time, a place, a schedule, a routine, a class, an exercise. What if we brought it back to being a celebration of motion, being able to let the body do, learn and be?” - Chip Conrad

References and Resources:

Ekelund, Ulf, et al. "Physical Activity and All-cause Mortality across Levels of Overall and Abdominal Adiposity in European Men and Women: The European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition Study (EPIC)." American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2015, doi: 10.3945/ajcn.114.100065.

"Press Release: Less Exercise, Not More Calories, Responsible for Expanding Waistlines." Elsevier. July 7, 2014. Accessed February 28, 2015. http://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/research-and-journals/less-exercise,-not-more-calories,-responsible-for-expanding-waistlines.

Ratey, John. Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2008.

Spark website: http://www.sparkpe.org/

Bodytribe Fitness and Chip Conrad:http://www.bodytribe.com/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClkhzp4aXGzuvkdoCtb5A2g