Schools build the mind, not body

Pupils line up for a health check at a school in Hefei. When the semester began in September, the city set up a health record for each student, hoping to provide scientific data for better health. Ge Chuanhong / for China Daily

Notice largely ignored

Standing at 1.86 meters tall and weighing 135 kg, Ji represents another problem that more Chinese teens are facing - obesity.

Last year's Education Ministry survey of 7- to 22-year-olds showed that in cities, about 15 percent of males and 10 percent of females were overweight. The rate has kept rising since the survey was first conducted in 1985.

Ji reached 70 kg at age 12, when the average is 40-50 kg. He kept eating a lot and his parents didn't have the heart to stop him. He said he wanted to play but there was no time.

"To put it simply, overweight results from too much energy intake and not enough consumption. Kids have better nutrition today but less exercise," said Wang Li, a doctor at Tianjin Aimin Weight-Loss Hospital, which normally holds clinics for about 200 overweight students every summer.

"When I was young, we rode (bicycles) to school and played together after class. Now the children just spend all day in the classroom, in front of the computer or in their parents' car. It is no surprise that obesity has become so common," said Wang, 42.

To address the problem, the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council in 2006 jointly issued a notice on improving physical education at school. What they called the Sunny Sport project requires primary and middle schools to hold at least one-hour group exercise sessions on days when there is no physical education class.

Premier Wen Jiabao also stressed the importance of the project in this year's government work report.

"The general situation has gotten a little better during the past five years thanks to the regulation, but it is still a tough challenge," said Yang Guiren, head of the Education Ministry's Department of Physical, Health and Arts Education.

"In a new survey this year, we found that less than a quarter of the schools we visited had fully carried out the one-hour project," Yang told China Daily.

A better motivator?

Qiao Yapei teaches physical education in a middle school in Xingtai, a city in Hebei province with a population of 7.1 million. Lack of quality teachers, shortage of playing fields and the heavy burden of study all contribute to the poor execution of the 2006 requirement, he said.

"Schools in the big cities like Beijing and Tianjin always attract good teachers and are equipped with quality equipment. But it is quite another story when it comes to smaller cities, let alone the rural areas," Qiao said.

"I've seen about 50 boys playing under one hoop in a local village. It is incredible in the urban area but that is reality here."

Instead of Sunny Sport, the current policy of including tests of physical ability in the entrance exam for senior high school as more effective, as far as Qiao is concerned. The full score for sports is 30 while it is 100 for the main subjects such as mathematics, Chinese and English.

"Students have greater motivation to do exercise and teachers also feel the pressure. At least in the last year, everyone takes physical education very seriously," he said.

There are even cram schools for sports in cities like Beijing for those who are struggling with the test. "But when they come to senior high school," Qiao said, "everything goes back to normal and the students will be buried by papers again."

Health matters most

That's still a few years ahead for Rong Yiyang. For now, he and his family have a more urgent task. Yiyang's eyesight has become worse, even though he started to wear glasses last year, at an early age.

As a result, the family recently decided he should quit his math cram class on Saturday mornings because it clashed with his checkup at the hospital.

"This is a tough decision. I'm a little worried because a lot of his classmates study there and he may fall behind after dropping out," his mother said.

"But I'm not hesitant. What is the value of scores and diplomas if my son doesn't have a healthy body? "

Rong Xiaozheng, Liu Wenjing and Xu Zheng contributed to this report.