 We all know that childhood obesity is a huge epidemic that is negatively affecting the health of the children in our country as well as other countries. If we do not teach children how to live healthy, physically active lives, childhood obesity is only going to get worse. I am going to examine how physical education, through physical activity can fight childhood obesity.

 The research conducted on this topic will be looked at under the following topics: anti-obesity programs, barriers to physical fitness, motivators of physical fitness, testing physical fitness levels, physical education training, children’s daily activity levels, and physical education requirements.

 The purpose of an anti-obesity program is to educate students in the areas of physical fitness and health, so that the odds of them becoming obese are decreased.  Della Torre, Akre, & Suris 2010) study done in Switzerland for anti-obesity program.  The Los Angles Unified School District (LAUSD) enforced two comprehensive nutrition policies, where the first policy implemented a ban of selling soda to students. The second was a ban on unhealthy snacks sold to students at school (Vecchiarelli, Takayanagi, & Neumann 2006). 55.5% of all students reporting that the policy affected the beverages they consumed and 52.6% of students impacted by the consumption of junk food at school.

 “Get Fit” program implemented in Memphis, TN. The research showed that after students went through the fitness and healthy eating habits curriculum, students identified a change to healthier lifestyle habits (Irwin C., Irwin R., Miller, Somes, & Richey 2010).

 Parents modeling unhealthy habits.  Lack of motivation when it comes to physical fitness (Rye, Tompkins, McClure, & Aleshire, 2008).  The Rye, Tompkins, McClure, & Aleshire’s study (2008) showed that after a physical education intervention was implemented in rural Virginian high schools, barriers were broken down. During year one of the intervention, 50% of participants decreased their barriers. Year two, 73% of the participants decreased their barriers.

 short-term results: energy level, sports performance, and weight.  enjoyment of doing physical activity and organized sports.

 Many states in the United States are mandating physical fitness testing in schools.  BMI testing puts students into four different categories: underweight, normal weight, overweight, and obese.  Students wear pedometers during physical education to test activity level.

 In some states, such as Oregon, elementary classroom teachers can at times be the person who teaches physical education. They are not required to hold a physical education license nor have any physical education training.  Research was conducted to look at the influence of a physical education methods courses on elementary education majors. There was a increase in knowledge of fundamental movement skills (Hart 2005).

 There is not a lot of data that identifies physical education’s part in children’s daily physical activity levels.  Research done by Morgan, Beighle, and Pangrazi (2007). The study took elementary physical education students’ BMIs and had students wear pedometers. The participants’ steps showed they had many more steps per day on school days with physical education than on school days without. The end result showed that at least 30 minutes of physical education could increase children’s daily physical activity levels.

 Students are required to have at least one year of physical education in high school.  Some states, such as Texas, allow students who participate in athletics, to use this as their physical education credit.  Research was conducted by Soukup, Henrich, and Barton-Weston (2010) to see if there was a significant difference between physical education students and student athletes. The results showed that athletes better recognized exercise behavior than physical education students.

 Through the research of these topics, it has been shown, that physical activity and physical education can help ward off the epidemic of childhood obesity (Della Torre, Akre, & Suris 2010, Morgan, Beighle, and Pangrazi 2007, O'Hanlon 2007, Vecchiarelli, Prelip, and Slusser, Weightman, & Neumann 2005).