Although the United States is growing ever more concerned with obesity, particularly among youth, many schools are curtailing or canceling physical education. The culprit: ever-tightening budgets. According to a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly half of the nation’s high schools weren’t offering physical education classes in an average week. Many elementary and middle schools are slicing gym, too. Even in health-conscious San Francisco, only 20 percent of its primary schools were offering students the state’s minimum requirements of 20 minutes of physical education per day. Even more discouraging: Many studies suggest physical education actually can help students learn better in their other classes—either because a healthy body leads to a healthy mind, or they simply have a change to burn off some excess energy. “There is shrinking P.E. and recess time for our kids,” wrote Dr. John J. Ratey in his book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. “P.E. teachers are fighting like cats and dogs to hold the line on their jobs and worth at the same time as there is a dawning awareness that we have missed the boat.” (New York Times)