Differences in physical activity, fitness knowledge, and obesity in secondary physical education and substitute physical education students in Texas

Graduation in Texas requires students take a year and a half of physical education or substitute physical education classes. The goal is for students who graduate from high school to have information about healthy lifestyles, the ability to design effective exercise programs, and have fitness as a lifelong goal. However, students are still being offered alternatives for credit in physical education. These alternatives have no systematic curricular instruction on health knowledge or fit lifestyles. There is no system of required accountability that measures student and teacher accomplishment of the physical education curriculum objectives in Texas. Are these goals being accomplished?;There were 310 students who participated in the study from a suburban high school in South Texas. The variables examined were differences in physical activity level, health and fitness knowledge, and body mass between physical education students and substitute physical education students. Analysis was also done to determine differences by gender, ethnicity, and grade level.;Substitute physical education students had higher physical activity levels than physical education students probably due to a high percentage of athletes in the substitute physical education sample. Physical education students had significantly higher health-related and fitness knowledge than substitute physical education students, and the physical education students continued to maintain higher health and fitness knowledge as they graduated to higher grade levels. Lastly, physical education students had significantly lower body mass than substitute physical education students.