SUNDAY FORUM

• Best advice for kids: Move, move, move • Winning the battle for fit kids • Time to 'run outside and play' • No room in schedule for exercise • Health concern led to quest for fitness • Fitness bits • What you can do now • Part #1 of series (Sep. 26) • Part #2 of series (Oct. 3) YOUR VOICE

Everything fits nicely, except exercise.

"We're required to take two semesters of phys ed, but I took mine in summer school after eighth grade and after sophomore year," Maria says. "I think that's the last time I sweated."

The push to develop a resume of top-drawer classes and extracurricular activities is leading more and more students to shortchange physical activity.

More than half of all high school students are not enrolled in a physical education class, and fewer than one in five seniors takes daily PE, the frequency recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Replacing a semester phys ed class with a four-week summer school course is a growing trend.

"Some kids fulfill their PE requirements in freshman year, or even in the summer before they enter as freshmen," says Joe Clear, a 21-year-veteran teacher in Princeton City Schools. "Then what do they do for the next four years? They're often in front of the computer."

Maria says a revved-up metabolism has spared her weight problems, but admits that her parents worry about her lack of exercise. "Every year my parents have tried to get me to do exercise or a sport, but Academic Quiz Team is a sport in this school - I just tell them that's my sport," Maria says.

Maria Abascal is so busy with activities at Lakota East High School, she has little time left for exercise. (Enquirer photo/TONY JONES)

In fact, because they are interscholastic competition, academic quiz teams do qualify as Greater Miami Conference sports, and relatively low-exertion pursuits such as bowling earn phys ed credits in some schools. Maria knows there are benefits from daily exercise. But as with many high-achieving adults, that knowledge doesn't make it easier to fit activity into a week composed of 30 hours of classes, 15 hours of homework, and 10 to 30 hours of newspaper work.

"I don't think many kids in this high school know if they have high blood pressure or some other health problem," she says. "There's a real focus on weight, so everybody cares if they're overweight. But nobody cares about high blood pressure or high cholesterol."