Fitness is not a final destination; it is a way of life. The best home improvement project that can be fashioned is one's body. The mindset of a healthy lifestyle and physique can start at an early age. However, in America, there is a high percentage of children between the ages six through seventeen that can not pass a physical fitness test. The ability to obtain a healthy way of life through food, exercise, and lifestyle choices should be provided and enforced throughout the crucial physical developmental period of the younger generations. This battle of the fittest is a difficult war to wage. Children today are faced with numerous opportunities to be led to the sickly couch potato way of living. Years gone by, children were outside playing from the time homework was finished to the moment street lights illuminated the neighborhood. Nowadays, children returning home after a day of matriculation have so many opportunities of which to choose. Most options involve a more sedentary form of entertainment. The inability of a majority of students that do not pass a standardized fitness test should be examined This situation is fast becoming a National health crisis. American children are our future. The lack of attention by most United States parental units is aiding and abetting this fast moving health epidemic. Over the past decade, obesity has increased significantly because of the lack of healthy nutrition and failure to increase exercise time for school-aged children. The time for action is now, and it needs to begin immediately. Our future is at stake.
Whispers of "red rover, red rover, let Sara come over" echo hauntingly from the past within seldom used playgrounds. Students and teachers today are on a modified recess time limit. The state required period slotted for recess is strictly twenty minutes. That duration also includes the lining up and walking to and from the playground area.