A Good Start, But Let's Keep Moving

With health as an adjunct process to education, we miss out on opportunities to leverage school's major influence (2nd only to the family) in students' lives.

As guest-blogger at Washington Post's The Answer Sheet, Sean Slade, director of ASCD's Healthy School Communities, writes

The Let’s Move! initiative starts the process by seeking changes to nutritional policy and increasing the amount of physical activity time available to students. However, these changes focus primarily on the physical and have the potential to remain solely programmatic.

It's time to make physical, mental, social, and emotional health a real goal of education, not just the purview of physical education, the cafeteria, or a one-off event. Check out Slade's advice for moving toward systemic healthy schools.

(Bonus: Read about the positive link between exercise and academic achievement.)