Are Your Kids Getting Enough Time to Play at School?

Do kids at schools in our area have enough access to playtime and exercise? Do they eat breakfast and lunch too close together? Is the school system setting them up for obesity and the diseases associated with it?

In response to a Times article about school breakfast and increasing rates of childhood obesity, neighbor Rosaly Kozbelt’s letter to the editor makes a great point about a lack of exercise options at the public schools she visited recently while trying to pick one for her son, who’s entering kindergarten this fall:

One school I visited (with an A grade) had no playground. Pre-K students were sometimes taken outside for fresh air but were not allowed to run around, lest they fall on the concrete and hurt themselves….

All of these schools provide a free breakfast; most of them serve lunch to kindergartners in the 10 o’clock hour. Is it any wonder that obesity is a problem?

Though most of the neighborhood is district 22, there are also parts in 15, 17, and 20, so there are a lot of parents who are coming from a lot of different schools. What are your experiences like?

Do your kids get enough time to play at their school? When it rains, what are their options–are they stuck inside, sitting and watching a movie? Do they even have a recess, or a gym class?

And how does all this compare to when you were a kid in school?