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| Feature | No.65 October 2013 |

American Physical Education: A Discursive Essay on the Potential Unifying Role of Physical Literacy in the United States

Tony Moreno

Abstract

In the US, higher rates of obesity have generated increased healthcare costs resulting in greater awareness and programs to help intervene and prevent the higher incidence of chronic illness and disease. To date, physical education as a preventative approach has lacked cohesion in curricular approach to increase physical activity and help address the current health crisis. The introduction of physical literacy as a concept may be an important tool to help physical educators in the US unify in approach in enabling youth and future generations to appreciate physical activity, reduce the prevalence of obesity, and decrease health care costs.

In the United States (US), acquiring affordable healthcare is a challenging and complicated issue as entire families, small businesses, local governments, and major corporations struggle with a fledgling economy, unemployment, and increased under-employment. With persistent political scrutiny, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 was eventually established to help many Americans acquire affordable healthcare. Within the American economic system, it is not difficult to understand why healthcare costs are high, because similar to precious metals, oil, and grain, health is a “commodity” and everyone needs and should be of “good health”. However, upon review of various economic and health reports from the Centers for Disease and Control (CDC), it is apparent the demand for good health far outstrips supply thus, costs are anticipated to become more expensive as demand increases (Finkelstein, Feibelkorn, & Wang, G., 2004; Hammond & Levine, 2010).

Combined with increasing health care costs and a delicate economy, the burden of overweight and obesity and their association with the higher incidence of chronic illness and disease (e.g. coronary heart disease, type II diabetes, hypertension, etc.) has generated greater discussion with regard to the importance of physical activity among various US federal and state health agencies (Wang, Beydoun, Liang, Caballero, & Kumanyika, 2008). According to reports from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), from 1976-80 to 2009-10 there was relatively little change in the percentage of overweight Americans (32.1% to 32.7% respectively) between the ages of 20 to 74 (Fryar, Carroll, & Ogden, 2012). However, during the same period, the trend for obesity alarmingly more than doubled from 15% to 36% for the same age group. In addition, for children and adolescents, the 2009-10 NHANES report indicated that 16.9% of the population ages 2 to 19 years were categorized as obese. Obese children are at high risk for short-term health consequences and long-term tracking of obesity into adulthood (Ogden, Carroll, Kit, & Flegal, 2012). This is a growing health concern because it is estimated that about 70% of obese adolescents will mature to become obese adults, thus perpetuating the cycle of chronic illness and disease throughout the lifespan. (Akhtar-Danesh, Dehghan, & Merchant, 2005).

Because the predominance of conditions associated with overweight and obesity are derived from an imbalance between energy expenditure and energy intake, addressing low levels of physical activity, malnutrition, or a combination of both become important concerns for allied health organizations and professionals within the US. Recently, it was estimated that approximately 58% of American children ages 6 to 11 do not engage in the recommended amount of daily physical activity, and by adolescence the proportion jumps to 92% (Benson & Mokhtari, 2011). This decline of physical activity among youth has generated several popular and media driven initiatives such as the National Football League’s “Let’s Play 60” and First Lady Michele Obama’s “Let’s Move in School” to create greater awareness of the overweight/obesity epidemic among parents and school-age children.

Physical Education is Affordable Healthcare

To effectively address the issue of escalating healthcare costs, an idealistic, although very calculated approach would be to produce an effective and efficient socio-educational model that strives to help schools and communities grasp and understand the multi-faceted importance of health, fitness, and physical activity. Healthy and “physically educated” individuals demonstrate lifelong decisions and lifestyle choices strongly associated with the prevention of chronic illness and disease (Centers for Disease Control, 2009).

In the US, the most effective venue to introduce, encourage, and practice these lifelong habits (as with all academic subjects) is the school setting, where students of physical education can learn and develop the understanding that they are ultimately responsible for, and caretakers of their own health and well-being in a progressive manner. It is vital at present to ensure that the physical education curriculum implemented in the school setting has the potential to not only make an impact on cognitive and affective areas of learning, but principally the psychomotor domain. This is especially true for elementary age groups, for it is accomplishment and the competency of secured motor ability that empowers the student with the confidence to move frequently and effectively in a variety of physical activity pursuits and environments (Stodden, Goodway, Langendorfer, Roberton, Rudisill, Garcia, & Garcia, 2008).

Physical education models that address awareness rather than acknowledge competency are cost effective and simple to implement, but awareness does not necessarily initiate voluntary participation in regular physical activity. Awareness sends a message of consciousness that inevitably turns to unconsciousness unless it is regularly reinforced. An educational model based upon awareness does not ensure the engagement or practice vital to the mastery of movement concepts critical for enhanced health and well-being.

Physical Education in the Free Market

Given the free-market and media-rich environment within the US, it has become common for various educational institutions, business enterprises, professional organizations and individuals to create and support programming that utilize the terms physical activity, physical education and “physical fitness” in a frivolous manner. Perhaps lending to more confusion is the recent introduction of the term “physical literacy” that has slowly trickled into the consciousness and vocabulary of various professional physical education organizations and practitioners.

Whitehead (2010) defines physical literacy as a concept where an individual will demonstrate the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge and understanding to value and take responsibility for maintaining purposeful physical activity throughout the lifespan. Conversely, physical illiteracy is evident when one no longer exhibits these attributes and as a result, may be less inclined to engage in physical pursuits on a regular basis. Because physical literacy as a concept can underlie the capacity for a person to feel confident about play, games, sport, exercise and other various forms of physical activity, the American Alliance of Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance (AAHPERD) has embraced this paradigm as part of the National Standards and Grade-level outcomes for quality Kindergarten through 12th grade physical education (Figure 1). AAHPERD is typically recognized as an influential policy-making and governing organization among physical education professionals employed in primary and secondary schools within the United States.

Before one can further address the potential impact of physical literacy in the United States, it is important to understand the position of physical education as a curricular subject in the school setting. Over the years, the time and resources dedicated to quality physical education programs among elementary and secondary school settings have deteriorated dramatically (National Association for Sport and Physical Education, 2012). Although at present it appears the trend for increased obesity has stabilized in the US, the lack of a centralized commitment to physical education as an essential part of a complete educational curriculum has further compounded the issue of decreased physical activity among youth, and perhaps nurtured and sustained increased overweight and obesity among Americans for all age groups for the past 35 years.

Despite the present challenges, the dynamic of increasing and enhancing the physical activity experience inside and outside the classroom setting is both exciting and cumbersome at the same time. Exciting because social crisis (e.g., increased health care costs, obesity, etc.) often brings about the best of innovation from many entrepreneurs, organizations, and resources to find solutions to problems that can potentially affect many. At present, it appears that a significant (albeit unknown) portion of physical educators are moving away from a curriculum traditionally centered about individual and team-oriented sports (sport-skill model) and instead, becoming more reliant upon free market activities found in the commercial fitness industry (e.g., resistance training, bicycling, high-intensity training, yoga, martial arts, etc.). This “fitness model“, often referred to as “health-related” physical education, is attractive and has been absorbed into the lesson plans of multiple school districts and instructors because they offer curricular variety for the physical educator and new challenges for the student (McKenzie, Sallis, Prochaska, Conway, Marshall & Rosengard, 2010).

The concern with introducing “fitness” programming with a free-market ideal is that an “anything goes” approach without scientific basis can become ambiguous with regard to quality and validity as an effective tool or solution to a health problem. This ethos runs counter to what is acceptable in the American school setting where administrators and teachers are bound or tend to follow curricular guidelines and standards as determined by each state or even school district. This in itself leads to unclear, inconclusive, and differing best practices and in many cases, confusion and a lack of cohesion as to what is the ultimate learning objective in the physical education setting. Is it physical fitness? Is it to learn a sport? Is it physical activity? Is it evidence-based? Finally, is it the role of the physical educator to offer a “health club-like service” to the student for the sake of entertainment and participation, or is it to create a learning environment where the student is to be challenged on all physiological, neurological, and mechanical fronts while engaged in “motor learning”?

In contrast, the entrepreneur is uninhibited to experiment, revise, and alter programming in the hopes of creating, acquiring and maintaining a customer base without any regard for mandated or advocated restrictions or guidelines. In this setting there is no need for agreement of terminology (unless Government or State licensure or certification is necessary for service), as quality customer service will most always be deemed successful by results that generate positive revenues and market-share.

In the school setting however, it is this difference of agreement where the boundaries of principle, quality, effectiveness, and definition become non-distinct and distorted lending to misunderstandings or misperceptions for both physical education teacher, parent, and student expectations. To reiterate, it is this lack of cohesion that threatens quality physical education and its vital role in providing “preventative” health care because of the potential for poor quality control, leaving it open as a discipline open to public scrutiny.

Physical Literacy is “the Tie that binds”

Interestingly, the introduction of physical literacy as a key concept within the physical education community offers physical educators an opportunity to unify a curriculum rooted in the mastery and exhibition of fundamental motor ability. If, as defined by Whitehead (2010), physical educators can embrace the affective, cognitive, and psychomotor qualities of physical literacy, it should be appreciated that the acquisition of motor ability should be the primary basis from which not only movement competence is achieved, but movement confidence is realized. It is this confidence that is the key component for physically active lifestyles from childhood into adulthood that can potentially have a strong impact on preventing chronic illness and disease in the United States (Barnett, Van Beurden, Morgan, Brooks, & Beard, 2008).

As physically literacy is embraced in the US, there appears to be a collective agreement that quality physical education is the medium through which one becomes physically literate, with the aim of making one movement competent (AAHPERD, 2013). It is this process that must be resolved and refined so that motor competence is acquired, rehearsed, and challenged in a variety (depending upon biological maturation) of contexts so that one becomes not only movement capable in a variety of environments, but motor confident in multiple settings. As one becomes more comfortable in the context of their choice, it is here that the recognition of activity is enjoyable and becomes an important part of their lifestyle. Although the student of physical literacy realizes physical fitness is important, they do not move for the “sake of physical fitness” but rather, they move as it becomes an important part of how they define themselves or their “being” in the present (Whitehead, 2010).

Equipped with the appropriate amount of motor capability and confidence, it is from here that “passionate” moderate to vigorous participation in physical activity with adequate levels of physiological and mechanical stress will generate the biological adaptations that will enable one to possess greater “physical fitness” and adaptation to physical stressors. In essence, this will allow one to become “physically fit” with higher capacities for cardio-respiratory ability, muscular strength, flexibility, and perhaps enhance other performance-related bio-motor abilities such as power, agility, balance, and reactivity (Hallal, Victoria, Azevedo, & Wells, 2006).

Until there is a consensus of definitions and direction for how physical fitness, physical education, and physical activity co-exist, there will continue to be discord and little agreement in establishing a unified or “best practice” physical education curriculum in the United States. In addition, it is uncertain what this consequence will have on the reputation of the discipline as supporters of physical education argue that teaching opportunities have diminished due to curricular changes and/or distressed school budgets. With regard to school-aged children, limited or non-existent opportunities to learn how to competently and confidently move will accelerate “health and physical illiteracy” within the United States (Stodden et al. 2009).

As a notion associated with the enabling of both physical competence and self-confidence, physical literacy becomes one of the core objectives for the physical educator to “educe” and cultivate among students within the school setting, further strengthening the unique relationship physical movement can possess with regard to the affective, cognitive, and psychomotor domains of learning (Strong, Malina, Blimkie, Daniels, Dishman, Gutin, B., & Trudeau, 2005). For students of Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) programs, it is important they understand the concept of physical literacy and the essential exercise and movement science coursework that trigger an understanding of the various physiological and biomechanical perspectives related to skill acquisition, motor competence, and the development of a scientifically sound and appropriate physical education curriculum. In addition to understanding the mechanisms of physiological and biomechanical stressors necessary to acquire the various components of both health and performance-related physical fitness, it is imperative physical educators reach beyond the classroom setting, investigate, and covet papers that form the basis for movement literacy, including but not limited to Nikolai Bernstein’s (1986) seminal essays in “On Dexterity and it’s Development”, from which it can be argued initiate those critical concepts related to the origin of Dynamical Systems Theory.

At present, physical literacy is a novel and evolving concept within the United States and is becoming adopted as an important ideal with regard to increasing physical activity among Americans to help stem increasing overweight and obesity and reduce the incidence of chronic illness and disease. Physical literacy is not physical education, but it should be recognized that physical education is the curricular process in the school setting where youth are taught to become both motor competent and confident. It is this competence and confidence that enables moderate to vigorous physical activity as part of one’s self or being, thus becoming a component of everyday life. As physiological and mechanical stress is applied to the body, this enables properties of physical fitness to help the human body cope with activities of daily living, sport, and recreation. Although under persistent renewal and interpretation in terms of definition, physical literacy is “the tie that binds” the ambiguity often found in the American school setting. The time has come for American physical educators and the governing bodies of their various associations to realize the tremendous impact this physical literacy as a concept can have on long-term health consequences and reduced health care costs for many Americans, especially youth.

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Contact

Tony Moreno
Associate Professor of Exercise Science and Physical Education
Eastern Michigan University
Ypsilanti, Michigan
USA
Email amoreno@emich.edu

http://www.icsspe.org/