This article was originally published in South Carolina Daily Gazette.
COLUMBIA — Recess would be required for elementary and middle school students in a proposal attempting to decrease childhood obesity rates.
The bill discussed by a House panel Tuesday would mandate at least 20 minutes of outdoor play every school day for students in kindergarten through eighth grade. It would also double the time sixth- through eighth-graders must spend in structured physical education classes, from 30 hours to 60 hours for the year.
The goal, said bill sponsor Rep. Patrick Haddon, is to get students more physically active to reduce obesity rates.
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Nearly 40% of students in the state were overweight or obese last school year, according to data collected through the SC FitnessGram program .
“This is a big problem that’s been in the making for some years now,” said Haddon, R-Greenville.
In nearly half the state’s public schools, students in second, fifth and eighth grades, as well as high schoolers, take the FitnessGram test to evaluate their general health and physical abilities. Those findings show childhood fitness has been falling, said Russell Pate, who leads a group at the University of South Carolina researching children’s physical activity.