As statistics show the waistlines of American children continuing to bulge, Ohio lawmakers hope educators opt into new measures designed to have a slimming effect beginning next year.

Late last month, Gov. Ted Strickland signed the final version of Senate Bill 210 -- the Healthy Choices for Healthy Children Act -- into law. With it comes new options designed to help school leaders encourage more-healthful lifestyles in the students they educate.

Under the new act, the Ohio Department of Education will oversee an optional pilot program that requires K-12 schools to incorporate 30 minutes of physical activity into the school day beyond recess. It's set to begin with the 2011-12 school year.

Districts are not required to opt into the program. In early versions of the bill, districts were mandated to add the 30 minutes of exercise. But lobbyists from organizations including the Ohio Association of School Business Officials balked at the idea of more unfunded state mandates and they lobbied against the requirement.

"We agree that physical activity is important to a healthy lifestyle; however, without additional funding, school districts simply cannot afford this mandate," wrote Barbara Shaner and Jennifer Economus in a March memo to the original bill's sponsors.

Shaner and Economus are the OASBO's associate director and legislative specialist, respectively.

State Rep. John Patrick Carney (D-Columbus) said "the school boards and the teachers unions and others were very concerned about the physical activity portion (of the bill) ... without a specific funding mechanism."

Still, Carney said, he was disappointed when the groups succeeded in their push to have the mandate removed from the bill and replaced with the opt-in pilot -- especially in light of the statistics that rank Ohio the 15th fattest state, he said.

An estimated 26 percent of the state's adults and 14.2 percent of its children are obese, according to the Ohio State Medical Association.

Carney and state Rep. Lynn Wachtmann (R-Napoleon) co-sponsored the bill in the Ohio House. Versions of the legislation first were introduced in November 2009 in the Senate and House. Both approved the bill June 3.

The bill requires school districts to collect the body mass index of students in kindergarten and grades 3, 5 and 9 each school year. Body mass index, a calculation based on height and weight, is a "reliable indicator of body fatness," according to the Center for Disease Control.

Parents can opt out of this screening, and districts can obtain a waiver to opt out of the assessments if district officials can prove the district can't comply with the requirement.

For the past two school years, Columbus City Schools has been collecting body mass index measurements from students in kindergarten and grades 3, 5, 7 and 9 as a part of its Wellness Initiative, said Mary Ey, the district's chief of academic support services.

The statistics will be used to "make recommendations to schools and school feeder patterns that would guide in partnerships" designed to increase student health, Ey said.

The bill also retools nutritional requirements for a la carte items sold at schools and extends them to beverages. It also creates the Healthy Choices for Healthy Children Council, which will monitor district's progress in improving student health and making policy recommendations to the state board of education and department of eduction.

With this legislation, "Ohio will be one of the most progressive states in regard to improving the actual quality of the food (offered in) K-12," Carney said.

While the act isn't quite what its sponsors intended, fighting obesity through the legislation isn't a lost cause, Carney said.

"I will certainly continue to be vigilant (in promoting) physical activity as something we need to get back into the schools," he said.

"This needs to be a problem that everyone tackles," not families and schools alone, he added.

"I think this is a great first step, but there's a lot more that needs to be done."