In middle schools, no room for the arts?

State education officials and parents want middle schoolers to continue taking arts classes — but it looks like the kids may be too fat to do so. Under a new state law, middle school students are required to have a certain amount of PE, but that's left the State Board of Education wondering how to balance that requirement with already struggling art and music classes.

About 35 percent of schoolchildren in Texas were considered obese or overweight in 2005, putting them at risk for diabetes and high blood pressure, according to state data.

Because roughly 20 percent of adolescents get virtually no physical activity on a daily basis, state board members must use this opportunity to set higher standards at schools, said Dr. Albert Hergenroeder, a professor at the Baylor College of Medicine.

"The fact that we've allowed the daily physical activity requirement to be whittled away is regrettable," said Hergenroeder, who also serves as chief of the adolescent medicine and sports medicine clinics at Texas Children's Hospital. "I have no doubt that from a public health point of view this is a good idea."

That's a lot of overweight kids — and that's not all. A lot of them are making bad grades, too, so they have to take extra reading and math classes that end up pushing them out of music and art electives. That's all on top of the push toward teaching to the TAKS test, which doesn't leave much room for the arts.

The State Board of Education will begin tackling the problem next month.

Board members expect to be swamped with e-mails, calls and speakers, much like they were when they set a physical education standard for elementary school students in 2002.

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"I don't want to chose between the two," said state board member Barbara Cargill, a Woodlands resident who has three middle-school-aged sons. "I want to find a place for both. Some way that's got to happen."