Put Physical Education Back in BYU's Curriculum!

Students are rejoicing in their potential for obesity and heart disease: Brigham Young University has removed the health education requirement from their curriculum. Now students may sit back, relax with their high sodium top-a-ramen and work on their hours of homework while their body is working on storing fat.

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This poses problems in the image that BYU has for their students, how this will affect the image that America gives the world, people losing their jobs, and students losing their long-term health.

This action is not consistent with BYU’s goal of sending complete and well rounded people out into the world to succeed. An excellent job is done of preparing the students spiritually; basically every class or activity provides the opportunity for spiritual growth. In previous years BYU has also done exceedingly well in being ranked among the most healthy schools in the nation. However, lifting the required classes that teach how to maintain healthy lifestyles could be detrimental to the school’s prestige. Both the spiritual and physical sides of the human body should be kept in mind when determining what makes a person whole and prepared to meet the demands of this modern world we live in. Now the physical side of the students is lacking, and BYU is sending their students out into America unprepared.

Morbid obesity is rampant in the United States of America. There is a constant flow of new reality television shows made about people who have gained the most weight, and who are able to lose the most weight in the shortest amount of time. There are infomercials claiming that they have found the one and only sure fire way to lose weight as fast as possible. Advertisements for work out equipment have increased so quickly that manufacturers have had to come up with new and strange devices that look like futuristic space crafts rather than a simple way to help you lose those extra few pounds. These tactics are not effective. People need to develop their own healthy habits so that these ridiculous measures are not needed, and health education classes can ensure these habits.

I think that the health education requirement should not have been lifted. However, throughout my public school education, physical education has been my least favorite class. Two of my least favorite activities are exercise and people telling me what they think I should do. Physical education combines these two things into a class that provides something for me to loathe. As strong as my hatred is for P.E. classes, they are the classes that will have the most far reaching benefits in my life. While physical education and health classes being cut across the nation has brought me somewhat of a joy and satisfaction, at the same time it is a detriment to America’s physical well being. Students need health education classes so they can form healthy living habits, and teachers need the students so that they will still be relevant in their teaching positions.

Another major issue that BYU is dealing with is the hiring freeze. Once employees are gone, new ones cannot be hired. Since the classes are being cut, not as many health education teachers are needed. These People go to school for years to learn how to teach people good habits. They have been blessed in this life with the ability to be sports-minded. They not only can play the—seemingly complicated to me—sports , but they are gifted with the ability to be able to teach them. They take this gift and make it flourish by getting a degree in physical education. They come to acquire the knowledge of all of the ins and outs of all sports ever created, and can play and teach them all. Some may say that due to the financial crisis, that sports and physical education classes should be the first to go. After all they are not as important as the quantum physics or trigonometry classes that students must take in order to achieve the status of being a decent human. So the P.E. classes are cut leaving many teachers without employment and many students with useless information in their minds and flab on their bones.

            There are those among the student population of BYU who eat well, walk across campus all day, and then go running every night. The sports teams get regular exercise every day and also get a healthy dose of competition. BYU’s very successful dance program is rigorous and requires a lot of time and effort to be put into them in order to be anywhere near the standard. Many of these students may feel as if they do not need a health requirement, and adding something else would be overwhelming. However, the majority of the student population is not on a sports team, and many of them are too busy to use their precious amounts of free time to exercise. In order to accommodate the majority of the student population’s needs, a standard health program should be put into place. It would be an easy requirement to fulfill for the already sports-minded, and a necessary investment to those that are not endowed with this gift.

            BYU students, and students across the nation, would greatly benefit from being taught how to continually maintain a healthy lifestyle. No matter the monetary cost or time cost, the health of our bodies is priceless. I want to be able to move and function when I am older, not to be in constant pain and decrepit. Decide for yourself whether BYU’s curriculum would be helpful for you in maintaining a permanent healthy lifestyle by looking at the following core curriculum link.

http://saas.byu.edu/classSchedule/policy/fall/univcore.php