Dear Editors:

The health of WS and all America is and has been declining for a number of years. In 2004, 64 percent of Americans ages 20-72 were considered to be overweight, compared to 47 percent in the late ’70s with more than 31 percent of Americans today considered obese.

This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed to students at a young age while still in high school. WS needs to help fight obesity by making Physical Education mandatory for all students, grades 9-12.

With the implementation of mandatory PE for all students, seniors and juniors will fail to forget the valuable health lessons that they learned freshman and sophomore years. If juniors and seniors were in PE, the student body would be much healthier as students would be more physically active and would not get into bad habits such as alcohol and drugs that are so often prominent in upperclassmen compared to underclassmen.

There would be clear, and much needed, health improvements if more physical education was required. WS should seriously consider such a decision involving school curriculum

Sincerely,

Leo Montoya