Numerous studies have revealed the need of taking a brief break to unwind and reboot if you want to be productive, successful, and have a positive outlook on the future. This is especially true for kids who sit hunched over a computer for extended periods of time. Every hour, you should ideally take a 5–10 minute break from your screens. You may take advantage of this to stretch and refocus. That is whyP.E.is good for students’ minds to have an hour or so of time to just refocus and relax. 

However, it also helps with kids that have ADHD (Attention-Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder). Regular exercise is one of the simplest and most efficient strategies to lessen ADHD symptoms and enhance focus, motivation, memory, and mood. Dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin levels in the brain are all rapidly increased by physical exercise, which has an impact on focus and attention.

Coming back to the question at the start, I completely agree thatP.E.benefits students, however it has its disadvantages. It can drive children into depression, being bullied, and does not enhance their effort due to being overweight; however, it can help with the attention span of children, improve their social skills, and help children become fit. What would be extremely beneficial would be to sustain the nutrition classes to help spread awareness of what young children/adults are consuming.

Growing up in international schools, being among a diversity of bodies was the norm for me. I used to believe I was being exposed to the most globally realistic environments, but as I was granted access to social media, I quickly learned that my education had only closed me into a culture of utopian acceptance and tolerance. I was exposed to the frankly awful reality of “free speech”. 

What overwhelmed me was the concentration of conventionally “ideal” bodies on every social media page. The divide between how such individuals were treated was intense as well. This divide became very clear, ironically, in the “body positivity” corner of social media. A video about accepting all shapes and sizes that was created by a relatively thin influencer would prompt praise in every comment, while one featuring a plus-sized creator with the exact same message of positivity would attract backhanded or even outright negative comments. This only proves that we have so deeply internalized body-based stereotyping, and the blame can only go to one root: Diet culture.

The Profits of the Diet Industry 

The weight loss and diet industry is one of 175 billion USD (as of 2022). While a fair proportion of the contributors are those who have healthy goals (e.g. those who were recommended products by a licensed doctor), most of the industry is fueled by the desperation of millions who partake in unhealthy dieting habits such as yo-yo dieting. 

This toxic industry is fueled by a series of beliefs nested under the category of diet culture. “Diet culture” refers to the moral hierarchy of body types fueled by health myths and the complex belief system tied to dieting and weight gain or loss. Diet culture manifests in myths such as “the thinner the better” or “X food is bad, but Y food is good.” 

While diet culture has become less perpetuated recently, the roots of it still linger because it is a psychological mindset that is easily passed down through generations. So although, “My, you’ve gained weight! What a shame…” comments may not come up on the dinner table as often, they have only become more well-disguised, a replacement being, “Are you sure you want to eat all that?” or, “I could never eat that much!” 

A misconception that many have about anti diet-culture advocates is that they promote unhealthy lifestyles or medical obesity. It is a fact that obesity is a health issue that should be addressed, and it is true that exercise and balanced eating is a significant part of a healthy lifestyle. “Anti diet-culture” only targets the toxic mentality of diet culture, and only some anti-dieters actively encourage certain habits such as intuitive eating. 

Diet culture in Health education

Robin H. is a middle school Health teacher at ISM. In the anti diet-culture world, health classes are notorious for being the dieting trendsetter within adolescents. This has been improved, however, after decades of regrettable nutritional education. 

“I often emphasize the idea of the 7 main principles of nutrition, so I approach nutrition as a big idea, rather than focusing on the little details,” Robin assures. “We look at weight from a range perspective, too, because as adolescents, students’ bodies are constantly changing.” The emphasis is on change, rather than on suggesting one set point weight for everyone. 

Taking a holistic approach to diet and weight education is the goal to help spread informative education on healthy eating habits while staying safely away from the toxic realm of diet culture.  

“While there is more acceptance of different bodies in social media, there is still this pressure that your own body should be like an edited one that you might see on Instagram,” Robin adds.

Helping those affected — Can this ever be reversed? 

While diet culture is becoming far less perpetuated, the trauma that it evokes is generational. It is as important to heal the previous generations affected by it as it is to prevent the ideals spreading further in the future. 

“The main focus is on how you feel. Are you eating enough to obtain all the nutrients necessary to be healthy and internally fit? Those are the questions that I would ask someone,” Robin states. 

The more intuitive approach to diets and eating in general is a much healthier perspective because in most cases, the body knows what it needs when it needs it. For example, individuals with high blood pressure or inflammation have shown to crave sour foods or flavors more because the body knows that those foods help to cleanse the liver. 

Intuitive eating for individuals who have yo-yo dieted in the past can be risky as it can result in bingeing which can re-start the cycle, but when monitored by a certified dietitian or used for essential meals, for example, it is ultimately one of the healthiest solutions to heal the trauma that dieting leaves behind. 

Weight cycling, disordered eating behaviors, and diet obsession, all fueled by diet culture and the million-dollar industry behind it, are all physiologically and psychologically traumatizing actions that should not be overlooked anymore. There is still a long resolution process awaiting for generations to come

Another issue is introducing children to this newfound ideology. One big concern is the abstract idea as a whole. A child being introduced to these ideas might be confused and eventually mess up using even gender-specific pronouns as a whole. This can over-complicate simple ideas such as gender, and cause confusion about gender identity in a child’s brain.

But then how do we create an easy-to-learn way to respect everybody’s gender identity? One way this can be done is by only using the pronouns he/him she/her and they/them. These pronouns are extremely easy to implement into everyday life, and they don’t cause too many grammatical issues. Other pronouns such as “xe/xir” and “ze/zir” can be perplexing to use, and can create a lot of confusion surrounding who to use these pronouns with. 

Gender-neutral pronouns might be hard to understand, but they play an important role in the gender identity of an individual. It is still important to respect everybody’s pronouns while making them a concept that is easy to understand in our changing society. 

Cricket is a developing sport at International School Manila (ISM) and is having its first international match against SAS in February 2024. Although the HS department has announced tryouts, the tryouts are only for 1 match. I believe that cricket should be increased in international games and also be a part of IASAS just like the other sports that are played at ISM. Cricket is popularly played in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. All these countries also have a school in part of IASAS, so we could increase these schools and add international schools from Japan, Hong Kong, and Thailand to make cricket a 7-team sport in IASAS.

ISM Student and Teacher Opinions

Student Opinions

• “I think it should be added, because we are an international school, and we need more international games.” - Mikael Ahmad Malik

• “Adding cricket, or adding any new sport, to IASAS would be opening up to a brand new culture. It would look great for the school, and it would be an amazing addition for my peers who enjoy playing the sport.” - Rina Matsuo, she also believes that Coach Jonathan Taylor would be a great addition to the cricket coaching. 

• “Yes, It should” - Salaar Haider, he believes that coach Maccines would be another valuable option for coaching.

• “Yes it's worth it because there will be more sports recognized throughout IASAS.” - Zayan Bin Amin, he also believes that Coach David Allen and Coach Jonathan Taylor would be valuable for cricket coaching. 

• “I think it's worth it to add it since there is a large community of people from cricket-playing countries in ISM, and I'm assuming it's likely the same in the other Iasas schools too.” - Rudraksh Singh, he believes that Coach Pearce and Mr. Hudson would be good additions as well. 

• “In my opinion, it's worth it” - Muhammad Umer.

• “Yes. Cricket is just better.” - Z, he believes Coach Pearce would be a good addition.

Teacher Interviews

Mr. Pekin’s Interview:

Q: “Do you think that cricket is worth being an IASAS sport?”

A: “It's a little bit tricky. I think the potential is there for it because matches could be played in a T10 or T20 format, so the time frame could work. Facilities-wise could be problematic. And then potentially some of the schools, cricket's not a huge sport or maybe not a huge part of the culture. Maybe in Taipei, for example, or maybe in Bangkok, for instance. Maybe it's played a little bit more in places like Singapore and Malaysia, and starting to get more popular here in the Philippines as well. So for some schools, yes. For some schools, maybe not.

Q: “Do you think if IASAS cricket was brought in, do you think it would help support other cultures at ISM?”

A: “Yeah, I think it would allow a different cultural network of kids to be able to be involved. I think we would have, let's say, let's say, in the world of dreams, IASAS took on cricket as a sport. I think you're going to get maybe a larger number of kids from the Indian subcontinent, Sri Lanka, kids from Malaysia who have an idea about cricket, kids from New Zealand, the UK. But it's being played in more countries now through the emerging cricket network. It's being played a lot more countries in Europe, a lot more places in the US and Canada now. So it would create a different group of students to be able to be involved in another sport which they haven't been able to have the opportunity to be involved in before.”

Q: “I think you already answered it, but maybe going a little bit more into detail on do we have the facilities and equipment required to host the cricket games?.”

A: “I think training-wise, we could manage it. The tennis courts is a good surface to have as a practice facility for batting and bowling, depending on the time of year. Potentially if it went down the road of becoming a little bit more like an IASAS sport or having some invitationals on a regular basis. I think training facility-wise, we can't really play a game with cricket on the middle school field or the high school field, because that surface is not really conducive to bowling a cricket ball and batting on that surface. So I think you'd have to be able to go elsewhere. Maybe down at Club United in Merville to have the games, or down at the Philippine cricket Association ground down in Cavite, you'd have to bus people down there to play any matches if something like that was to eventuate. But on-site here at ISM, playing games would be a little bit tricky. We can do indoor cricket in the gyms. We can do a modified version of cricket up on the tennis courts with the fences and those sorts of things. But yeah, we don't really have a ground nearby where we could go and lay down a cricket wicket, and play matches.”

Q: “Okay, so just to see, but we wanted to know if ISM would be able to fund all this if IASAS cricket was actually being played and stuff.”

A: “I think there's obviously a process that IASAS has to go through. There are other sports that have come into IASAS over the years, rugby and touch are probably the last two sports to become IASAS sports. There's a time period where all the schools have to agree to it and then have to start their programs up. And then it goes through a two-year exchange or an invitational thing where all schools actually attend the event. And then after those two years, it's reassessed and then evaluated by the IASAS board. And if every school commits to it, then that's when it will become an IASAS sport. So just saying, Okay, we want to have IASAS cricket start up next year, it doesn't work like that. There's a process that has to go through. And all of the schools, if it becomes an IASAS sport, everyone needs to be involved and needs to buy into it, needs to support it financially, needs to have the culture and the energy and the desire amongst the students for it to become a reality. And that takes time. So would it ever happen? Hard to know. Is it going to take time to happen? It's going to take more time than just flicking a switch and saying we're going to start IASAS cricket in two years time. It's not going to happen in that short space of time frame. But if one or two or three schools start to get a program going and it starts to build some growth from below, middle school level, and then some high school exchanges happen or imitations happen between schools,[It]starts to get a bit of energy for it. That's how it builds itself slowly.”

Q: “So just like moving a little bit out of my assets, do you think we could start a middle and high school team that plays domestically around the Philippines with BSM and other teams that would be playing cricket here in the Philippines?”

A: “The Philippines. Yeah, that's been a potential that we've talked about for a number of years with different faculty members that have been interested as well. So number one, you need the group of kids, which I think potentially our school could gather with the number of kids that we have in our school that are interested in cricket. I think there's an ISM cricket team now that wasn't around when I first came to the school, but there's a group of teachers that are involved and play cricket in the local PCA competition. I'm sure there'd be the interest there from some of the faculty members to help support it. I think there's some elementary school cricket and there's middle and high school cricket that goes on under the Activities Program during the year and Coach Dutton's program. The interest is there. We've talked to BSM a number of times over the years about putting a team together to come and play like a little home in a way backwards and forwards up on the tennis courts and stuff. We've never been able to really pin them down to... For them to put a team together. So whether that's something that we can continue to talk with them about, there could be the potential too if we've got a dedicated teacher that was interested to even put a team in the local PCA competition.

That's been talked about before, but that's another different dynamic that you have to go through. You've got to get a dedicated person who's going to be able to fund the team, a couple of parents that are really going to get behind it because you've got to then do transportation. If it becomes an ISM team, then it has to have all the bells and whistles of an ISM activity, right? Going down to the ground, you've got to have a bus, you have security marshals to go with the ISM team. So there's different layers to it, but there's the potential for it again.”

Mr. Vinter’s Interview:

Q: “Do you think that cricket is worth being a sport in IASAS?”

A: “As a big cricket fan, I certainly think it's worth being a sport in IASAS. I think there's a large population of students who maybe come from backgrounds where cricketing is really big in their family, big in their home countries. I think in general, IASAS is obviously schools based in the Southeast Asian region, and we're seeing cricket really grow in that region at the moment. The Philippines, cricket is really growing here. The national team are improving a lot. I know in some of the other IASAS schools or the countries they're in, if we think about Singapore, for example, there's a really strong cricket community there. I definitely think it'd be great to see it included in IASAS one day. I think the main stumbling block with cricket being an IASAS sport is the facilities or the access to facilities because you need a good pitch. You need a lot of kit for cricket, a lot of equipment, and that can be a very hard thing to set up from scratch.”

Suggestion: “Talking about equipment, we can definitely use Club United down in Makati.”

Answer: “Yeah, Exactly”

Q: “Just to end it off here, would you be interested in coaching for cricket?”

A: “Cricket team. I definitely[have]always have[had] interest in coaching cricket. I love coaching cricket. I'm a qualified coach. If I was asked right here, right now on the spot, Could I coach the IASAS or an IASAS cricket team? I, due to a limit of time in my life, I wouldn't be able to commit to it, sadly. Life is very busy here at ISM for students and teachers. Then I have a young daughter at home who keeps me very busy, but who knows? In the future, if a year or a few years down the line, cricket was to become a Gaelic sport, it's always something I'd be interested in coaching. If I had the time available, I would love to be able to do it. In this very moment, it's not something I could commit with a yes as an answer, but I'm certainly always interested in coaching cricket. I really enjoy it. Like with everyone, it's just a case of finding the time and making sure I've got the right balance in my life.

Where would cricket be played?

Evidence of ISM’s previous exposure at Club United and how it is suitable considering it has lights that support cricket during the evening and night as well. (Images by: Facebook Club United PH: https://www.facebook.com/clubunitedph) 

Cricket requires a large ground, at least 75 meters in length and 60 meters in width, although ISM doesn’t have a ground made to suit that size, cricket could be hosted at a nearby club that offers their cricket ground to be booked. The club is called Club United, and they offer their ground to be booked for cricket games, they also have cricket nets available. The nets are a good opportunity for the players of the team to get a warm-up before the game, allowing them to have an excellent game. Another place where the teams could practice would be at the ISM Tennis courts and the cricket nets that our friends at BSM have. Club United also has an Indian cuisine restaurant, which makes it a good place to play cricket as it offers lunch/dinner for the players to eat during the innings break. This ground can be trusted as the teachers of ISM have already had a few games at Club United as the team of International School Manila. Another benefit of Club United is that longer games can be played as their lights can help provide light during the night allowing cricket to be played in the evening and night as well.

Do we have enough players?

A form was sent out on October 2nd, 2023 to the students of ISM who are currently signed up for the cricket after-school activity. Out of the 20 people the form was sent to, 10 answered and the results (checked on Oct 9) show that 8 people are willing to participate in the IASAS cricket Team and the other 2 think it is worth it but are not willing to play in the cricketing Side. 

Cons

The team would be made of people from the Indian subcontinent, as the players that are currently interested and are playing are most if not all from the Indian Subcontinent.

A lot of extra costs would be added as all the equipment would have to be shipped in from other nearby countries as the Philippines does not have cricket Equipment Facilities. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, IASAS cricket definitely has potential and just needs a spark domestically and moving onto international games against SAS, and other international schools to sort of create the process that Mr. Pekin had described, and eventually, that would lead to cricket becoming an IASAS Sport. However to even get this process going we are going to need a lot of support from ATAC, ISM Teachers, Students, and Parents. The potential definitely can be increased if after-school activities for cricket are created for elementary school and for grades 5 and 6 in middle school to try and get some tennis and windbreaker ball practice in, so they can join the 7-12th graders in the hard ball cricket with some pre-developed skills. This will also help in having a bigger community which will help influence cricket to have a team and to start playing those domestic games here hopefully, leading to the process that was described earlier. Although the extra shipping costs would be there, they would only be there for around once a year if all the equipment that is needed is ordered once, and usually, not a lot of equipment would be needed as most people who are interested in cricket usually have parts of the kit that they already use and would be happy to continue using. Besides the fact that the current team would be led by players from the Indian subcontinent, it would allow others to watch the players play and then be influenced to gain interest in cricket and join the team allowing a lot more people from different nations to come together and form a team. So in the end, If all the planning and ideas are implemented, IASAS cricket would be a good opportunity for kids who don’t have any sports that interest them from other nations to have an opportunity in cricket and allow them to gain their skills in Middle School and then join the IASAS team once they have developed their skills and reached High School, this leads to believing that overall IASAS cricket would be a good idea and would allow many more opportunities