如果家长们注意到他们的孩子在学校里更活跃了，他们应该感谢威尼斯人娱乐城护理与健康研究学院的两位公共卫生研究人员。 约瑟夫·莱特纳和阿曼达·格莱姆斯建议改变全国的体育教育要求。 新的指导方针建议孩子们每天至少进行60分钟的体育活动。
“With these guidelines laid out and the evidence supporting them,” said Grimes, “we hope that someone working at the local level can use these to enact change in their community.”
据格莱姆斯说，这些指导方针也有学术上的好处。 “Is physical activity of lesser value than academics?” said Grimes. “We just know that the research shows they are tightly correlated. Kids who are more physically active do better in school, behaviorally and academically.”
Lightner and Grimes work with the local program 多动，多收获, whose goal is to increase physical activity and nutrition among middle school students in Kansas City public schools. 该项目的一部分是通过计步器跟踪学生在日常生活中的活跃程度，因此格兰姆斯亲眼目睹了疫情对这些学生的影响。
“After the pandemic hit, the kids’ activity levels went down to 40 minutes a week,” said Grimes. “That means in an entire week, they’re not even meeting what we’re hoping for in a day.”
Lightner knows that sustained behavior change is hard, but the research in the field of public health has found that it’s easier to get kids active than to get adults to change sedentary ways.
对此，莱特纳和格莱姆斯提倡不仅要增加体育活动，还要提高体育素养，这样学生就可以在成年后保持积极的生活方式。 随着课外运动的竞争越来越激烈，孩子们可能会落后，成年后缺乏参与的技能。
“I was super involved in sport growing up,” said Grimes. “I think about how that impacted my life and trajectory, not only in my career, but also taking a healthy lifestyle into adulthood.”
Lightner readily admits that he didn’t like physical education classes when he was in school. But he is also training for a half-triathlon, so he’s not one to shy away from being active. The difference is he’s found joy in his pursuit of being a triathlete.
“Enjoyment is one of the best predictors of physical activity throughout life,” said Lightner. “I love physical activity but not in school. I tried to get out of PE as much as possible.”
But Lightner knows that physical activity is one of the simplest and cheapest ways to combat the most common chronic health problems: heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc. “It’s always thrown around in public health circles,” said Lightner, “but if physical activity was a pill, it would be the most prescribed medicine on the planet.”
According to Lightner, physical activity is a relatively young area in the field of public health but that doesn’t take away from its importance. “Policy is a long road,” said Lightner. “I think it’s important to note that it took us a long time to get to this point and it will take some time to get to the next step.”