Childhood obesity is a national health concern. Physical education can play an instrumental role in combating this epidemic. In response to this issue, the New York State Physical Education Learning Standards for K-12 students were transformed into a survey administered to a sample of physical education teachers (N=261). The survey ascertained teachers' ratings of their knowledge, ability/skill, education/training, and attitudes regarding the importance of future professionals receiving training to teach according to the standards in an effort to address childhood obesity.
Method:
Certified physical education teachers and teachers in training were recruited nationally via an online social marketing campaign and completed an online survey developed by the study author (Survey for Physical Education Teachers (SPET)). Data were collected on the following constructs: (1) Demographics and Background Information, (2) Teacher Assessment for Standard 1: Personal Health and Fitness, (3) Teacher Assessment for Standard 2: A Safe and Healthy Environment, (4) Teacher Assessment for Standard 3: Resource Management, (5) Perceived Barriers to Effective Teaching of Physical Education, and (6) Obesity Prevention/ Intervention Effectiveness. Data were cleaned and analyzed using SPSS (version 20.0). Descriptive statistics and regression analyses were conducted.
Analysis/Results:
Results demonstrated the best predictors of a physical education teacher's self-efficacy to effectively respond to the nation’s obesity epidemic are 1) higher rating of their health status (B= .120, SE = .444, p = .007), 2) fewer years teaching physical education at their current school (B= - .039, SE = .018, p = .007) , 3) smaller school size (B= - .064, SE = .018, p = .047), 4) higher student socioeconomic status (B=.079, SE = .029, p = .008), 5) additional resources at school to support quality physical education (B= .187, SE = .085, p = .028), 6) and working in a school more likely to take steps to respond to the nation’s obesity epidemic (B = .126, SE = .055, p = .022). The Adjusted R Square = .313, meaning 31.3% of the variance was accounted for by this model with a statistically significant F value =11.592 (Sig. = .000).
Conclusions:
These results suggest that schools should engage their new teachers in extra efforts to respond to childhood obesity. Further, obesity prevention efforts should target schools in low SES neighborhoods and obesity prevention programs and/or physical education pedagogy should be tweaked to effectively address large class sizes and schools with less resources. This study emphasizes the critical influence of physical education teachers and teachers in training as a point of prevention and intervention in the nation’s obesity epidemic.