P.E. and Me

from my scratch pad

Daniel Lieberman’s Exercised confirmed for me (and readers of my previous column) that (a) exercise is good for you and (b) few people actually want to do it. The book includes a trove of research, most of which I didn’t read; that’s his job. But one paper caught my eye and made me chuckle: “‘My Best Memory Is When I Was Done with It’: PE Memories Are Associated with Adult Sedentary Behavior.”

Researchers interested in the link between memories of P.E. and attitudes toward P.A. (physical activity) found that, for 7 percent of survey respondents, the best memories they had of physical education class were “not having to take PE class any longer or skipping the class.”¹ What havoc that little irony must have wrought with their scoring system!

I myself have a similar best P.E. memory. Halfway through 10th grade, my family went to spend the spring semester in London, and I it dawned on me that was it: I was done with P.E., a class that had been not only required but, to my great indignation, graded. The skills I brought to gym class were studiousness, obedience, and a capacity to endure. I would have traded it all for upper-body strength and hand-eye coordination. I don’t remember any specific humiliation, but every class without one felt like a narrow escape. Will I get up the rope? Can I do a non-laughable number of sit-ups? Will I drop the ball?²

What a relief to know all that was over!³

Working Out Without the Mean Girls

Some survey respondents did love P.E., of course, specifically the feeling of competence it gave them. Those respondents, researchers found, were more likely to feel positive about physical activity and to be physically active as adults than respondents who remembered P.E. as an occasion for embarrassment, bullying, body shame, injury, or punishment.

Since we’re mentally back here in high school, I am moved to say, No d’uh. But, having confirmed that bad gym class experiences were correlated with future negative attitudes to exercise, the paper goes on to suggest that . . . it doesn’t have to be that way.

The authors argue that, since even small increases in physical activity improve health outcomes, if more children had better associations with physical activity in P.E. class, the health of American adults will improve. What if we could start from scratch, with the conviction that the point of P.E. class was to ensure that when kids grew up, they would want to move their bodies?

[I]t may be time to crystallize the promotion of pleasure and enjoyment, and the establishment of an implicit association between movement and pleasure, as one of the overarching objectives of PE.

They recommend things like giving kids options of both competitive and non-competitive activities, as well as limiting the intensity of activities to make sure they stay pleasurable. They acknowledge that a substantial paradigmatic shift would be required. But at the very least, “the decades-old arguments concerning the focus on sport in PE programs and the pros versus the cons of fitness testing should be revisited.” I think I speak for a lot of formerly terrified gym class students when I say, Indeed.

1. “On the other hand, no participant reported canceled PE or skipping PE as being a worst memory.” Ha.

2. No, yes, and sometimes.

3. After that, college made one last attempt to turn me into a well-rounded person. Shoutout to all the kind people who tried to teach me to cross-country ski, play racquetball, and ice skate. There were certain college courses that everyone understood to be suitable for recruited athletes looking for an easy pass: “Rocks for Jocks,” for example. My P.E. electives felt like the opposite: give-it-a-try, ungraded, “Sports for Dorks.”