The bad news is that the global economy has gone in the toilet. The good news is that most economists agree on something. They suggest that to winch ourselves out of this abyss, we (or our government) must do some serious spending. As a lifelong fiscal conservative, this notion makes me nervous.
However, a New York Times column by recent Nobel Prize recipient Paul Krugman helped me to realize that in a depression economy, we must operate by a different set of rules. Mr. Krugman feels that appropriately targeted spending in huge chunks is the best and only answer. If the economy overheats to the point of inflation, he says that we will have plenty of room to cool things down by increasing interest rates.
So … I'm ready to chime in with my own suggestions about how we should spend all that money we are going to print. It's hard to argue with the value of repairing and improving our roads, bridges, airports, etc. Maybe those of us who prefer to commute by bicycle will get a few more lanes of our own as part of this rehab of our infrastructure.
A comprehensive and totally federally funded immunization program also would be a nice addition. However, I suggest that we invest some of our stimulus package in something less tangible than bridges and vaccines—a plan that will stimulate our children to become more physically active.
The origins of our national epidemic of obesity are many and, in some cases, poorly defined, but it is clear that a sedentary lifestyle is a contributor. Although there are too few valid studies to draw a solid conclusion, intuition tells me that programs including increased physical activity must be beneficial. While I would like to see us take the simple and direct approach and blow up half the televisions in the United States, somehow I don't think Congress will buy it.
Although my friends who are educators have become increasingly frustrated as our public schools have become dumpsters for our society's ills, I am afraid it's time to toss our epidemic of physical inactivity on the pile.
A few primary school educators that I know have cleverly integrated physical activity into their curricula. However, I think the severity of the problem demands the more drastic step of adding an hour to the school day for every kindergarten-through-fifth-grade student in America. Obviously, this is a change with a big price tag. So this is where the stimulus bundle comes in. In the plan, each school that added an hour to the school day would receive a sizeable chunk of change to fund the cost of staff and building maintenance. The only stipulation would be that during that hour the students must be kept physically active.
Each school could use the money as its needs dictate. Upgrade playgrounds, modify classrooms to be activity friendly, pay stipends for teachers who wanted to work more hours—or even better, pay underemployed community members to be supervisors. Each school would be supplied with voluminous educational materials to stimulate creative solutions to fill that hour. For some schools, it may simply mean adding another and longer recess that promotes free play. For others, it could be adding nontraditional school activities such as dance and martial arts.
Presumably, the biggest health payoff for our investment would be a few decades away. For a quicker feedback, one could measure BMIs anonymously and compare them before and after initiating the program. Regardless of how much it bumps up our GDP, one less hour of inactivity will be good for our children.