The nation’s struggling economy might just have revealed the solution to childhood obesity concerns: Make kids walk to school. It’s still too early to tell whether this hypothesis will prove true. But we’ll find out: More and more students will be walking to school this fall.
The economy is behind this promising shift in public health policy. As school budgets shrink in today’s economy, local school officials are cutting school bus routes and limiting bus service to students who live more than two miles from school.
Memphis is a perfect example. According to the city’s local newspaper, the Commercial Appeal, the Memphis Public Schools system has cut 40 percent of its school bus routes, spread bus stops farther apart, and told older students to start hoofing it this fall.
That’ll save the school system $6.5 million a year. But I wonder whether it’ll also lead to slimmer-if a bit sweatier-students showing up at school each day. We might be talking about a lot of pounds here. The Commercial Appeal reports the number of students riding a school bus dropped 5 percent nationally last year. By my estimates, that’s about 1.3 million kids.
So let’s do the math: If 1.3 million students start walking 2 miles a day, and if that burns off about 200 calories, that’s 260 million calories. If it takes 3,500 calories to burn off a pound of fat, then walking to school will burn off 37 tons a day. That’s the equivalent of walking off more than 1,800 40-pound kindergarteners.
Okay, my calculations are—to be generous—shaky. But still, I see potential here. The next policy step is to reverse the trend toward electronic textbooks and online homework. If we’ve got kids walking, let’s not make their burden easier. Send kids home with backpacks stuffed with traditional (and heavy) textbooks. It’s just more calories they’ll burn.
And we need to put an end to the unhealthy policies of school systems like Andover, Kan., where school officials have agreed they’ll continue to bus students in these difficult budget times—for $100 a year.
What are you doing, Andover? So only kids from poor homes are going to be healthy and trim in your school system? If you’re not careful, all the well-to-do kids in town will soon be putting on the pounds. What kind of a lesson is that to teach kids?
Now, let’s be honest. The economy, and strained school transportation budgets, might yet prove a blessing in disguise. We know that healthy school lunches and occasional gym classes aren’t going to be enough to combat childhood obesity.
So let’s do the right thing: The new mantra of local education policymakers should be that kids walk to school. It builds character—and slims waistlines.
Del Stover, Senior Editor
