Why are students physically frail?

During the two-week military training for freshmen at Peking University last year, the 3,500 students had to visit the university hospital thousands of times. Many of them even fainted, especially in the first week, reflecting their poor physical health. To improve students' physical well-being and strengthen physical education in schools, the government has decided to include students' physical health as a criterion for admission to institutions of higher learning, says an article on rednet.cn. Excerpts:

The weak constitution of university students is indeed shocking, but the decline in their physical health doesn't begin in universities. Compared with preliminary and middle schools, high schools and colleges allow enough time to students to play sports or do physical exercise in the many sports facilities available on campuses. Most universities have standard facilities such as football fields, basketball courts and indoor stadiums. Some even have tennis courts, swimming pools and/or golf courses.

Recent years have seen a continuous deterioration in Chinese teenagers' body mass index, for which the exam-oriented education system is partly to blame. And even though many schools have two to four classes a week for physical exercise, most students prefer to use them to indulge in extracurricular activities other than sports or physical exercise.

So long as the current system continues, evaluation of students' physical health for admission to higher education institutions will change things only superficially.

The obsession of parents to ensure their children pay almost their entire attention to exams is chiefly to blame for the sorry state of affairs that we see today. How can parents who help their offspring deceive teachers just to avoid military training bring up healthy children?

The Peking University case is a reminder that strong measures have to be taken to improve students' physical health.

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(China Daily 09/20/2012 page9)