In the ongoing battle against childhood obesity there are harsh and hard drawn lines in the sand. Some people are pointing their fingers at the parents, claiming that it all the mother and father that are to blame. Others are pointing at society in general, or the advertisers, the fast food restaurants and others. There are some that are willing to concede that it is a complex matter that may have its cause stemming from many aspects of the child's life. One of those is the time that they spend in school, more specifically, the time they spend or do not spend in gym class.

Many states mandate some level of physical education for public school districts, particularly in the grades between kindergarten and sixth grade. California, the target for a research study regarding physical education and fitness mandates that children in those grades get at least two hundred minutes of physical education, however, not all public school districts are compliant with the mandate.

Research led by Emma V. Sanchez-Vaznaugh Sc.D, an assistant professor at San Francisco State University found that students in the compliant schools were nearly thirty percent more likely to be more physically fit as determined by a fitness test than students in schools that were not compliant with the state's mandate. The fitness test is typically a one mile walk or run at the student's own speed level.

Some of the schools that were deemed to be non-compliant with either the mandate itself or with reporting laws claimed that a lack of funding harmed their ability to follow through as planned.

A 2010 study presented at the American Heart Association Conference on Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism showed that children who were at better physical health were also more likely to have better academic performance. Other studies echo those findings with some showing that physical fitness can mean an increase in IQ test points and other positive associations.

Obese children are at higher risk for a number of illnesses and may have more absences as a result. School accounts for as much as one third of the child's day - a large amount of time for no physical activity at all. In addition, school lunches have been vilified as nothing but chemical laden, high calorie and high processed foods which do nothing to address the weight issue. Experts are pushing to bring back more physical education time as well as a more active, outdoors when possible recess for the lower grades.