Yup, U.S. high schools put way too much emphasis on competitive sports for the elite few -- especially football in the south -- at the expense of overall fitness for everyone.
Besides ruining young bodies rather than emphasizing lifelong fitness habits, schools have participated in corrupting the health of young people by allowing junk chemical dispensaries -- sodas, candy and snack vending machines -- the proceeds from which are used to fund football and other programs for the few rather than benefiting the entire student body.
In effect the school system is punting the burden of health care onto taxpayers and the entire economic system later, by emphasizing contact sports too early that lead to lifelong injuries, and de-emphasizing overall fitness for most kids, and encouraging poor diet, aggravating the worsening problem with obesity, diabetes, etc.
I'm starting to sound like those curmudgeons I detested in my own youth, but the fact is when we were kids you rarely saw obese kids. Most kids were lean and reasonably fit from normal play activities. Nowadays it's rare to see any school age kid who doesn't have a layer of about 5-10 lbs of excess blubber, just from years of snacking and indolence. And that's being promoted as the new normal, so we don't risk harming the self esteem of the fattened cattle. It's not the kids' fault but they're being abused by an entire system that treats them like commodities and consumers for profit.