Benefit Of Physical Education Essay

The Benefits of Physical Activity During Youth

The rate of overweight and obese individuals relative to population has been constantly increasing in the developed world especially in the United States. While general health can be influenced by many factors and there are many ideas regarding the root of the problem, the majority of health professionals would agree that more physical exercise would greatly benefit the overall health level of the developed world. While increased availability of school physical education has helped “only 21.3% of all adolescents participated in one or more days Per week of PE in their schools” (Gordon-Larsen, McMurray, Popkin). Progress has been made, but more improvements in childhood and adolescent activity rates need to be made to improve the overall health level of countries in the developed world. While long term health is influenced by many factors, some of which are uncontrollable, developing regular activity habits during childhood and adolescence are vital to long term health and well being. Those who exercise in youth are more likely to maintain healthy exercise patterns in adulthood. In a systematic review of studies on the

Blair, Yiling Cheng and J. Scott Holder, the majority of studies concerning the benefits of physical activity found an inverse relation between physical activity and negative health results (S394). Since physical activity may prevent negative health results and exercise during childhood improves activity rates, establishing regular exercise patterns during childhood is vital to long term health. Many of the studies that were included in the studies showed that the benefits of physical activity alone has some sort of limit (Blair Cheng and Holder, S394). Since the benefits of physical activity are limited, establishing exercise patterns during youth will provide more benefits than exercise during adulthood due to the increase of physical