Are North Carolina's kids too fat to fight?

by Peg O'Connell, health care advocate and NC SPIN panelist, March 29. 2018

A recent national report found that obesity among active duty service members increased 61% between 2002 and 2011, and is impacting recruitment, as the Pentagon projects that by 2030, 64% of potential recruits will not qualify for service because of their weight.

This is an alarming statistic and should be of great concern to both state and federal policymakers. Federal policymakers should be alarmed because it is clearly an issue of national security and North Carolina policymakers should be concerned because so many military recruits come from our state. This Community Preventive Services Task Force 2017 Annual Report to Congress: Providing the Science to Support Military Readiness and Resilience is additional proof North Carolina’s childhood obesity rate is seriously impacting the military’s ability to recruit, and it has a significant impact on those already serving.

But there are things we can do to reverse this trend. Daily physical education has been shown to decrease the odds of a child becoming an overweight adult by as much as 28 percent, and children who are overweight at ages 10 to 15 have an 80 percent likelihood of becoming obese by age 25. PE teaches the health-related benefits of regular physical activity, a critical part of maintaining a healthy weight.

Unfortunately, many students in North Carolina are not getting the physical education they need. Evidence shows that elementary school students should receive 150 minutes of PE per week and that middle school students should receive 225 minutes of PE per week, but our state has no requirements for the minimum number of PE minutes per week for these students.

This lack of PE is one of the drivers of the state’s high obesity rate and low physical fitness and can impact academic achievement as well as readiness to serve in the military. When adequately offered, PE addresses the needs of the whole student and can have a positive impact on their physical, emotional, and mental health.

North Carolina policymakers can’t fix the whole country, but by requiring high quality physical education in our schools, they can help to fix our part of it.