Don't get me wrong. I love sports. And Americans should be more active for realz. I, too, was a competitive athlete. In fact, in my competitive days, they didn't have a Women's water polo team, so I played on the Men's water polo team. I also played competitive basketball. There were times when I was doing both, which meant that I was working out (team practice) a total of five to six hours a day. That's like 25 to 30 hours a week. That's like a part-time job.
So, I've provided some numbers to see if we can put this in prospective. Let's think about high school. If you have a high school that has 1000 students, it would be safe to say that 500 of those students are female. Now, a Women's Varsity Basketball team only has 15 spots (at maximum) to fill. That means that only 3% of the female students can be on the team. If you take a look at the graph of information below, you'll find the number of high school athletes reported by the National Federation of High Schools Association. Of the US population, there are approximately 197,112,674 adults. Now, those 7.6 million high school athletes do become adults. Those adults, who played competitive sports in high school are still only 3.86% of the their population category. The ratios are relatively the same.
Now, these numbers are not exact, but I do find it interesting that there is a smaller percentage of people who exercise for their health and a smaller percentage (very similar) of people who are well educated. And that the larger percentage of people not well educated is similar to the larger percentage of people who don't exercise for good health.
I do believe that education is the key to getting people moving and being physically active for their own health and wellness. This would be a great preventative measure. But it needs to come from some other venue and not in the primary and secondary school system, which is already over burdened as it is.
If you would like further information on the CDC guideline, click on the link below.