Play 60 is a National Football League (NFL) program aimed at getting America’s kids into physical activity for 60 minutes each day. When I was a kid, Play 60 might have been punishment! Not because we had to go outside to play, but that we were limited to only 60 minutes. That an advertisement is needed to get kids away from technology gadgets and other habits of inactivity is a sad commentary on societal trends that impact young people today.
When I was in school, the Presidential Physical Fitness Award program was a highlight of each school year. Unfortunately, the direction of recent policies in education to achieve higher academic learning results has reduced time requirements for physical education. Our kids—yes, Adventist students included—are life-threateningly unfit. Physical education teachers report that too many adolescents in our academies cannot do even one push-up or run one lap around the gym or ball field without being winded.
Ellen White writes: “Inaction is the greatest curse that ever came upon youth.”1 A better plan for education provided by God’s messenger to the church many years ago is being confirmed by research today. In the book Spark 2 Ratey and Hagerman give clear evidence that adding vigorous physical activity to the class schedule improves the brain’s ability to learn, process, and retain information. The correlation is clear that increased test scores, improved classroom behavior, and overall physical and mental well-being are directly related to adding focused physical fitness activity into the school day, not reducing it for more study time.
Adventist secondary education leaders and a small group of physical education teachers have begun to develop a plan to reverse the trend of less activity in Adventist schools. Collaboration with the North American Division (NAD) Health Ministries’ “Let’s Move” initiative (this year’s Let’s Move Day was September 25)3 and exploratory curriculum development with Florida Hospital’s CREATION Health program4 are being established. Other partners and a re-education of parents and teachers will help us extend the program to all schools. With the goal of optimal wellness for all students and staff, NAD education continues to seek ways to bring balance again to the spiritual, mental, and physical education provided to God’s youth in Adventist schools.
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1 Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 3, pp. 151, 152.
2 John J. Ratey and Eric Hagerman, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain (New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 2008).
3 www.adventistsinstepforlife.org/article.php?id=22
4 www.creationhealth.tv
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Jim Ingersoll, Ed.S. is associate director of education for the Southern Union Conference in Decatur, Georgia. This article was published October 27, 2011.
