Title:
More Physical Education, but Also More Injuries in
Class
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Education Report.
See text below
Text:
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
Too much eating. Too many unhealthy foods. Too many
advertisements for food. Too little activity.
Different explanations are offered for America's
weight problem a problem increasingly shared by
other countries. Almost one-fifth of American
children and teenagers are overweight.
Schools have been urged to increase physical
education, an important tool for public health. And
many have. Yet now comes a study showing an increase
in the number of injuries in "phys ed" class.
Injuries increased one hundred fifty percent between
nineteen ninety-seven and two thousand seven.
The study involved injuries treated in hospital
emergency departments. Only two percent were
serious. The researchers did not try to identify the
causes of the increase, but they have some theories.
Lara McKenzie from Ohio State University was the
lead researcher. She says one possibility is a
decrease in the number of school nurses during the
period they studied. For example, a two thousand
four study showed that the number of school nurses
nationally failed to meet federal guidelines.
Schools without a nurse on duty may be more likely
to send an injured child to a hospital.
Another possible reason for more injuries is a
change in the traditional idea of physical
education. This "New P.E." expands the kinds of
sports that are taught. But activities that some
schools offer now, like rock climbing walls and
skateboarding, can also expand the risks, says
Cheryl Richardson. She is with the National
Association for Sport and Physical Education.
Also, she says not all states require P.E. teachers
to be specially trained. Untrained teachers could be
less likely to recognize unsafe conditions.
Cheryl Richardson also points to one of the study's
findings that injuries are often the result of
contact with a person or a structure. This tells her
that the teachers were not giving each student
enough space to move around safely.
Six activities produced seventy percent of all
injuries: running, basketball, football, volleyball,
soccer and gymnastics.
The study appears in Pediatrics, the journal of the
American Academy of Pediatrics.
The researchers say larger class sizes are another
possible reason for the increase in injuries. Larger
classes can mean less supervision. The National
Association for Sport and Physical Education says
twenty to thirty students in a P.E. class should be
the limit.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report,
available online at voaspecialenglish.com.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
