Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center Director Dr. David Katz was among those honored in the October 2009 issue of Children’s Health magazine as one of 25 leaders, experts, advocates, and role models considered to be powerful influences on the lives of our children. In a Huffington Post commentary, Attention Deficit Disorder: Ritalin Or Recess?, Dr. Katz notes a recent CDC report on children and physical activity: “As often seems to be the case, modern analytic methods and systematic review of evidence landed us right in the middle of Grandma’s common sense counsel: sound mind, sound body.”
Dr. Katz continues, “Children used to play outside. They used to have physical education and recess during the school day. More and more, we take naturally rambunctious children, send them to schools from which recess and Phys Ed have been all but banished, bolt them to chairs all day long, and then watch them grow into adults we can’t get off couches with crowbars! And, alas, along the way we medicate more and more of them for attention disorders. Could it be that WE are the ones who have not been paying sufficient attention to the natural, healthy restlessness of children?”
HEM’s Closer Look at homeschooling and physical education.