Chinese, US officials meet at IU to develop new physical activity plan

Obesity has been a major concern across the globe, and now Chinese President Hu Jintao wants to tackle this threat with the help of the United States by implementing a new directive called Sunny Sports China as an attempt to provide daily physical activity for China’s 270 million schoolchildren.

This week, senior Chinese and U.S. government health, education and physical activity authorities and IU faculty will meet in Bloomington to draft the plans for the future programs.

Lloyd Kolbe, the associate dean for global and community health of the School of Health Physical Education and Recreation, and HPER Dean Robert Goodman will be helping with the collaboration between the two countries in tackling the threats of obesity. They are both noted experts in health program implementation, and Goodman speaks Mandarin Chinese. 

“We will be drafting a program to include an extensive physical activity that will be enjoyable and help build character and skills for students to carry on throughout their lifetime,” Kolbe said.

On Friday the draft will be finished, and the officials will present a conference outlining the future plans.

“This really is a partnership of the Chinese government and Indiana University, so it’s being held so we collaboratively learn from each other,” Kolbe said.

The plans will include documents used to train school administrators, teachers, physical educators and university professors and will urge involvement and support among families within the communities.

Kolbe said they will measure the extent to which young people are getting increased physical activity and the extent to which those young people are physically fit. He said many factors might determine why some students are not physically fit, including how long they participate in activities and their genetic backgrounds.

Kolbe cites scientific evidence that shows that by providing programs with physical involvement of at least 20 to 30 minutes in duration daily, risk of obesity will decrease, along with behavioral disruption.

Kolbe said although China has a lower rate of obesity compared to the United States, it also has 1.6 million schools, compared to the 120,000 schools in the United States.
“We think that building these schools of public health will be enormously important, and we anticipate that these efforts with the Chinese will be part of (IU President Michael) McRobbie’s interests with making IU a global university that we can work with other nations around the world,” Kolbe said.

Jade Hart, who works in the school of HPER under Kolbe, said the experts were really trying to bring together the partnership of business and governmental work through a health and education perspective, and they will be determining the measures of success at the conference. They will also be implementing these programs through doctoral students in Beijing who will serve as representatives to the program.

By using a “logic model,” Kolbe said they will be measuring the short- and long-term effects of the program by measuring how schools will be implementing the new programs and the outcomes of the increase of physical activity. He notes that the long-term effects will take about five to seven years to measure.

“The children of the world are our children,” Kolbe said. “They are the future and the health of the humankind. If we develop a new ethic where all of us are looking across boundaries, then we might have a healthier country and indeed across the globe.”