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Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com

Published - Thursday, July 24, 2008

Teach wellness in our schools

By JUSTIN RICE | Onalaska, Wis.

In today’s society, we are constantly seeing the need for physical education challenged by those who may not understand the importance physical education plays in our modern society. Physical education is an extremely important part of a child’s educational development for the following reasons.

First, regular physical education helps prevent disease. In the United States, health care expenses are rising at an alarming rate, and getting people physically active is the best way to prevent future health problems. If we as a society want to keep health care affordable for everyone, we must decrease our need for health care by simply staying as healthy as we possibly can, for the entirety of our lives.

I believe physical education’s ability to promote lifelong fitness is the next reason why physical education is so important.

Lifelong fitness will benefit a person by creating wellness in their life, extending their life, increasing socialization in their life and decreasing their risk of several different diseases. As people learn and grow, they need to know basic things such as how to read and write, do math and how to take care of themselves physically. If we fail to educate people on how to take care of their own bodies, their chances of reaching wellness decrease dramatically.

By creating wellness in people’s lives we are able to increase their overall quality, longevity and productivity of life. This also decreases their overall quality of life, and increases their risk for disease and depression.