What do you think of putting treadmill desks in schools?

[Taem]

I'm thinking of sending this short letter to the superintendent of the school district explaining the benefits of treadmill desks for our students. The letter is in it's early stages of development where I hardly mention the benefits of the treadmill desk whatsoever, but it will be edited shortly. Anyway, check out the links and tell me what you think, both about the subject in general, and about the flow of my letter. I honestly don't expect anything to change, but sometimes just putting the thought out there to the right people can make a change!

EDIT: Oh, this goes on the assumption that you know what a treadmill desk is in the first place; Treadmill Desk

Treadmill desks for students

Why?

1. Just getting the federal guidelines of 30-minutes of exercise a day is not enough;

Source(s):
Desk jobs are killers!
Our bodies go into 'shutdown'!
Students use treadmill desks at Hinesville school

Students are quite literally loosing life by not moving about. Just getting out and walking about is not giving them the exercise they need in a day.


2. Exercise has been proven to increase learning capacity;

Source(s):
Studying the link between exercise and learning
Physical exercise for a better brain!

Exercise improves test scores, so students who sit in a desk are scoring lower. The movement sends extra oxygen to the brain, promoting increased learning and attention.


3. Obesity and health

Source(s):
Obesity in Children and Teens - AACAP
Adolescent and School Health - CDC

America’s number one epidemic for children is obesity, which can lead to all sorts of health and emotional issues in a child’s future. As shown in #1, sitting for half your day will have severe negative impacts on your health. If students are sitting 6-hours in a school, then come home and do homework for another 1-3 hours, they’ve just spent the majority of their day sitting! Other than forcing kids to eat healthy, getting them to exercise is the key to tackling this obesity problem head on!

Conclusion

Bringing it all together, our children are sitting at desks up to six-hours in a school day and most likely are just scraping by on the federally recommended 30-minutes of exercise, then come home and do homework for another couple of hours a day. Even if a child is enrolled in sports after school, the studies linked to above have shown that our bodies require constant movement to stay healthy. In addition, constant movement has been proven to increase test score and attention in students, lower blood pressure, and promote learning through a healthier lifestyle. Finally, since obesity is such a problem in our country, our schools should lead the charge on facilitating healthy habits by helping them 1. Stay fit, 2. Increase their learning and test scores, and 3. Live longer to be the great leader of our future.

We can do all this by providing our students with treadmill desks. The Hinesville School experiment showed that just by placing treadmill desks in one period class could make a world of difference. This is a start, but the real objective would be to place them in every class.

I hope you enjoy reading this letter and perhaps some good can come from it in the future.