A Couple Colleges Have Moved to Help Their Students Stay Active and Healthy
By Ken Reed
Due to factors such as the dramatic decline in physical education classes and intramurals in K-12, and a huge increase in screen time (computers, video games, social media), along with an increase in processed junk food and Super-Size-Me fast food meals, today’s high school and college students are, on a whole, more overweight, obese and physically inactive than their counterparts from decades past.
Most colleges aren’t helping matters. According to a 2013 study, the number of college students with physical education requirements is at an all-time low.
However, a couple colleges are doing something about it.
At League of Fans, we’ve written about Spelman College in Atlanta in the past. They dropped their varsity athletics program in favor of a fitness and nutrition program for all students.
“When we studied this early this year, I was startled to see that we really only had 80 student athletes out of 2,100 students (in varsity athletics), and our program was costing almost $1 million,” said Beverly Daniel Tatum, the college president.
Tatum decided that when it comes to wellness, all students need to be athletes, in terms of becoming more physically active. In addition to dropping varsity athletics, Spelman’s physical education classes moved from a sports focus toward general fitness.
Highlands College in Alabama has taken things a step further. All Highlands College students are required to run a half marathon together (along with some faculty and staff members). If students have medical problems that don’t allow them to run the half-marathon, they are given alternative physical activities to do.
While making all students run a half-marathon might seem a little overbearing on the part of college administrators, the requirement is well-known and communicated in multiple ways to prospective students. Students know what they are getting into when they enroll at Highlands.
The half-marathon is part of a broad-based health and fitness plan for Highlands students. Students have access to excellent gym facilities and a healthy-focused meal service plan. Once a week, everyone participates in an intramural activity of their choice and the school participates in a tough mudder-esque event in the spring.
Highlands students have discovered there are benefits beyond just improved physical health.
“Especially when you’re new, you’re kind of skeptical, because you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, I can barely run a mile,” Highlands student Heather Archer told Runner’s World, fresh from one of the last sessions of her 6 a.m. Friday morning run group. “But Highlands College has really shown me what it is to be healthy, and when you’re healthy, your mentality is better, your outlook is better.”
— Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans
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Episode #27 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Kids’ Sports: How We Can Take Back the Game and Restore Quality Family Time In the Process – Linda Flanagan is author of “Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids’ Sports and Why It Matters.” We discuss how commercialized and professionalized youth sports are hurting kids and their families.
Episode #26 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: How Can We Fix Youth Sports? – John O’Sullivan is Founder and CEO of Changing the Game Project and author of “Changing the Game: The Parents Guide to Raising Happy, High Performing Athletes and Giving Youth Sports Back to Our Kids.”
Episode #25 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Physical Education Should Be a Critical Component of K-12 School Design – Michael Horn is co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation.
Episode #24 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Mental Health and Athletes: Ending the Stigma – Nathan Braaten and Taylor Ricci are the founders of Dam Worth It, a non-profit created to end the stigma around mental health at colleges and universities through sport, storytelling, and community creation.
Episode #23 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Olympian Benita Fitzgerald Mosley Talks Title IX, Youth Sports and the Olympics.
Media
"How We Can Save Sports" author Ken Reed appears on Fox & Friends to explain how there's "too much adult in youth sports."
Ken Reed appears on Mornings with Gail from KFKA Radio in Colorado to discuss bad parenting in youth athletics.
“Should College Athletes Be Paid?” Ken Reed on The Morning Show from Wisconsin Public Radio
Ken Reed appears on KGNU Community Radio in Colorado (at 02:30) to discuss equality in sports and Title IX.
Ken Reed appears on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour (at 38:35) to discuss his book The Sports Reformers: Working to Make the World of Sports a Better Place, and to talk about some current sports issues.
- League of Fans Sports Policy Director Ken Reed quoted in Washington Post column titled "What happened to P.E.? It’s losing ground in our push for academic improvement," by Jay Mathews
League of Fans is a sports reform project founded by Ralph Nader to fight for the higher principles of justice, fair play, equal opportunity and civil rights in sports; and to encourage safety and civic responsibility in sports industry and culture.
Vanderbilt Sport & Society - On The Ball with Andrew Maraniss with guest Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director for League of Fans and author of How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan
Sports & Torts – Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans – at the American Museum of Tort Law
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