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According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 28.8 percent of Iowa high school students are overweight or obese. The Iowa Business Council (IBC) has taken notice, and would like to help make Iowa the healthiest state in the country.

The IBC launched the PE4Life Adopt-A-School Challenge on Oct. 6 in an effort to recruit businesses to pair with 50 schools in order to allow PE4Life – a nonprofit based in Kansas City, Mo. – to bring two program coordinators to Des Moines who will work with educators to establish physical education programs with baselines and benchmarks for students. They will also help the schools establish physical education programs that are directed at all students and not just the athletically inclined.

PE4Life has trained more than 1,700 educators, and affected more than 2,400 schools and 2 million students.

Thanks to the IBC, Iowa will be the first to offer the program statewide.

Elliott Smith, executive director of the IBC, said educational excellence, and health care and wellness, have long been priorities of the council. Smith said that over the course of time, physical education has been neglected, and the consequences are serious.

“We are seeing now that the number of overweight and obese kids as measured by CDC is increasing,” Smith said.

“Not only does this affect the short-term health and well-being of these kids, but overweight and obese kids often tend to become overweight and obese adults.”

The IBC believes that a more focused and active physical education curriculum would improve students’ health and academic performance, and is leveraging member and nonmember businesses to help with the costs of implementing the PE4Life program.

The total cost to begin the program in a school is approximately $45,000, and the total cost to get 50 schools involved is estimated at $2.475 million.

Smith said the Wellmark Foundation, Hy-Vee Inc. and Iowa Health System have already committed a combined $1.5 million to the project, and that he expects many more businesses to make commitments in the coming months.

If all goes according to plan, Smith said, programs would be ready at all 50 schools by next fall.