Is a disproportionate amount of money spent on very few children for theater and music?
I thought the GGP was being unfair to athletics. Scholastic athletics are a necessary outlet for a lot of kids, as are theater and music. If you are going to do away with one of them, do away with all of it.
Maybe in certain areas of the USA (Texas, the deep south) you get an excess of public money going to athletics, in which case GGP has a valid point. But that wasn't my experience.
[1] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesi...
When I was in high school my baseball and football practices were 2-3 hours long and I would be exhausted and wheezing by the end of them. I have a knee injury from freshman year that still bothers me 20 years later. That's an insane time and energy commitment, I see why a lot of kids end up doing nothing.
I'd like to see more options that are lower intensity, don't require a commitment, and meet kids where they're at fitness level-wise.
If my school offered boys' badminton or volleyball (there were girls' teams but not boys), I could totally see myself as enjoying those sports.
In baseball, the very basic skill of hitting is just hard to accomplish. It takes a lot of practice hours to get the bare minimum of competency.
But I think these are two very important cultural games and I would be sad if they weren't played in public schools, it would be a real loss.
So once again we face a problem and I really don't know what the solution is.
Attempts to fix this problem are met with derision and quickly toppled due to politics over reason, see: https://letsmove.obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/healthy-school...
But exercise is also important for managing weight [1], and preventing/managing chronic disease [2]. And only about a quarter of adults in the US meet the HHS' activity guidelines [3].
[1] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesi...
[2] https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-dept...
You'd be surprised at how many people lose weight just by sleeping better.
When was the last time you jumped out of bed with a spring in your step?
There is also such a thing as diet induced obesity.
In North America, due to its vastness, everyone has drive somewhere, how on earth can people get their exercise if they are driving everywhere? Europe, is compact enough so that people can walk and get stuff, but the food legislation will play its part in creating obesity.