Physical Education

There's good and bad news when it comes to American obesity, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Tuesday at an event addressing the nation's increasingly costly and deadly weight problem.

Stephen T. Rooney was looking for a promotion. He had been a teacher and dean at Foshay Learning Center for more than five years and was ready to rise in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Among his recommendations was a glowing letter from Foshay's principal, Veronique D. Wills, who said he "is highly capable of making significant contributions to the educational community."

CALIFORNIA'S SCHOOLKIDS are out of shape. Only about one-quarter typically meet minimum standards on the state's physical fitness exam, and at some schools not one child in 1,000 scores a perfect six out of six. We're not trying to shame children. Many adults probably couldn't pass all six of the tests: a one-mile run/walk and examinations of body composition, flexibility and upper-body, back and abdominal strength.

California public school students are slightly trimmer and fitter than they were a year ago, but many still are unable to meet the state's basic level of fitness, according to figures released Thursday by the state Department of Education. And students in Los Angeles, especially high school students, were significantly less fit than the state average. About 60% of students in fifth, seventh and ninth grades statewide passed an aerobic fitness test, up roughly 3% from last year.

Despite an alarming rise in childhood obesity, more than half of California elementary schools are skimping on physical education, according to a report released Thursday.

Say "squishy-squashy" and students immediately know what to do in the model physical education program at Van Nuys Middle School. It means "move in close enough to touch somebody, but don't," one administrator explained. The command is an attention-getting time-saver -- before or after a physical activity -- when teachers need to be heard. But metaphorically, the invented word could apply to P.E. in the Los Angeles Unified School District as a whole. Squishy-squashy could stand for oversized P.

Jackie Robinson played four sports at what was then Pasadena Junior College on his way to breaking major league baseball's color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Fifty years later, pitcher Barry Zito spent a year at Pierce College before transferring to USC, then joined the Oakland A's, where he won the Cy Young award in 2002.

Re "A, A, B+, fat," editorial, Feb. 2 Curbing obesity may be the parents' job, but our schools, with the high fat content of the food they serve as well as the lack of physical exercise, share the blame as well. Before, the only time you could opt out of physical education was in college, not middle school or high school. Give us a break and put P.E. back in school where it belongs. CHARLES P. MARTIN \o7Los Angeles \f7

The third-grade students in Meg Greiner's PE class at Independence Elementary School can barely contain themselves as they wait for the previous class to end. With limbs twitching in anticipation, eyes fixed on the gymnasium and the equipment inside, they bound into the room as if being set free in a theme park. "Miss Greiner?" they wail. "Can we use the unicycles? Can we climb the rock wall today? Pleeeeaaaaase??"

Physical education class has long suffered from an image problem. Children often deem jumping jacks and chin-ups boring or goofy; parents wonder if the time would be better spent on reading skills. But a new study makes a strong case that physical education may be the single best strategy for curbing the nation's growing child obesity problem -- at least among girls. In the first study to evaluate the effect of P.E.