Kids fitness

The Fitness Challenge
City School Close Up

The Greeks understood that mind and body must develop in harmonious proportions to produce a creative intelligence. And so did the most brilliant intelligence of our earliest days ? Thomas Jefferson ? when he said, not less than two hours a day should be devoted to exercise. If the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence, was Secretary of State, and twice President, could give it two hours ? our children can give it 10 or 15 minutes.
John F. Kennedy, Address to the National Football Foundation, 1961

When you were a kid, what was your favorite thing to do? Run around with boundless energy, most likely. So what happened? When did you decide that racing your best friend to the corner, zooming to the top of the jungle gym, or throwing a ball against the side of the house for hours was too much effort?

City School physical education (PE) teachers are doing everything they can to make sure kids don?t lose their passion for blazing around the block with the wind at their backs.

?Being physically fit is a lifelong endeavor that takes root when we?re young,? says Daniels Run PE teacher Kendra Jones-Blair. That?s why she and fellow PE teacher Martha Ullrich cover all the basics. ?We teach them skills like kicking and climbing, and show them how to strike a ball with a short-handled implement [such as a racquet] and a long-handled one [a hockey stick]. Students also jog around the gym and track, toss a football, and even learn to climb up our rock wall. We expose them to just about every skill they?ll need to play a sport in middle- and high school.?

Ultimately, the Daniels Run PE teachers say their goal is to empower kids so they learn to feel good about their bodies and their health.

Ditto for PE teachers at Providence Elementary, Amy Haak and Luke Amos, who firmly believe physically fit kids are mentally fit, too. ?If we can get students to focus their energy enough to climb up a rock wall or rope, odds are good they?ll be able to concentrate on academic subjects like math, science and social studies,? says Haak. ?The correlation may not be immediately apparent, but it has been my experience that kids who do well in PE do well in all of their classes.?

Booting Up

Lanier Middle School PE teachers want to take all the good work the elementary PE teachers have done with kids and keep the ball rolling. It isn?t always easy to motivate middle school students, though, so three years ago Lanier?s PE team of Bill Wilkinson, Denise Moser, and Pam Clingenpeel set up an afterschool program called Bootcamp.

The 45-minute program is a high-energy aerobic workout with weight resistance exercises. It also introduces kids to free weights, yoga balls and ropes.

?Our goal is to get their heart rates to 65-85 percent of capacity for 30 minutes before finishing up with a cool-down routine,? says Wilkerson, noting the kids can?t seem to get enough of the program. ?More than 100 kids are participating this year, up from 60 in 2004-05. We hope more will join us every year.?

Students sign up for Bootcamp for a variety of reasons, Wilkinson believes. ?Some may be a little overweight. Others may just be super shy or in the throes of adolescence. And others may come from cultures where they?ve never been exposed to a fitness regiment. But when they start to exercise, it?s a big Wow! Everything changes. They breathe deeper and stand straighter, and that?s the magic of fitness.?

For more information, log onto: www.lanierbootcamp.com. Also, keep your eyes open for information about a newly formed non-profit organization: Functional Fitness 4 Kids, Inc. (http://www.FF4K.org). Founded by Moser, it will provide afterschool fitness activities and healthy snacks to 4th to 8th grade students in the region, and eventually throughout the country.

?We designed this program to combat the adolescent obesity epidemic that seems to be out of control,? Moser explains. ?I have big dreams about all the good work we?ll do by sending highly-qualified, certified fitness instructors and nutritionists into the nation?s public schools so tons more students can participate in their own gyms. There?s definitely a need to reach children who otherwise couldn?t afford to pay for fitness training. We think this model will really help to improve the health of our kids.?

Fitness Facts

For years, Fairfax High?s athletic director Tim Gordon has observed the benefits physical fitness has on his students. ?Kids who play team sports or work out to stay healthy not only seem to be happier ? they seem to do better in school,? Gordon says. ?I don?t think it?s because our athletes need to keep a high GPA to play. It?s more that playing on a team gives them the drive to maintain a high GPA.?

A case in point is Jordan Gibson, the FHS senior whose 3.8 GPA and 20.3 points per game landed him a spot on the Yale University basketball team next year. (See p8 for details.)

?Jordan is typical of a kid who knows what is important,? Gordon explains. ?He plays hard and studies hard, and in the end an Ivy League basketball team took notice and is giving him a shot at greatness.?

There?s never just one thing that makes a kid succeed, Gordon admits, but sports definitely help students focus on what is important, ?and that keeps them making good choices about getting enough exercise and eating right. After all, you can?t play a good game if you just pigged out on potato chips.?

Gordon?s assessment is not simply anecdotal. The U.S. Department of Education?s National Center for Education Statistics recently published a study in which researchers followed nearly 10,000 high schools athletes from the Class of 1992. Participants were all members of elite, varsity, or junior varsity teams.

?It just makes sense,? Gordon says. ?Students who participate in physical activities when they are young learn the importance of working as part of a team, and come to value having a healthy body. It follows that these kids will go on to do well in college, land good jobs, and stay active as adults.?

Fighting Fat at the Federal Level

In the past 20 years, the incidence of obesity in the U.S. has doubled in children and tripled in adolescents. The list of medical conditions that often result are serious, including Type II diabetes, gallbladder disease, asthma, and sleep apnea. Add to that the cost to hospitalize kids due to the ill-effects of childhood obesity: a whopping $127 million ? up from $35 million in 1981.

What?s more, overweight adolescents have a 70-80 percent chance of becoming obese adults. In addition to contending with depression, anxiety disorders and isolation from peers, heavy adults are also likely to suffer from diabetes, coronary disease and hypertension.

Realizing something needed to be done, in 2002 former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher waged war on the fattening of America?s youth. He hosted a Healthy School Summit in Washington, D.C., and the publicprivate partnership Action for Healthy Kids (AFHK) was born.

?The causes of children being overweight are no mystery,? says AFHK executive director Alicia Moag- Stahlberg, who points to increasingly sedentary lifestyles and over-consumption of high-calorie foods and drinks as the cause for the epidemic. ?But getting kids away from their televisions and computer screens is difficult for many reasons ? from lack of adult supervision and role models to unsafe neighborhoods. With ?super size? portions of high-cal, low-nutrient foods being so cheap, accessible at all times and easy to eat on the fly, trying to persuade children to eat according to Food Guide Pyramid becomes a daunting challenge.?

Moag-Stahlberg says AFHK is up to the challenge, and it has the support of more than 55 organizations ? including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Education.

AFHK?s goals are threefold: To improve the eating habits of schoolchildren by increasing access to nutritious foods on school grounds; to increase kids? physical activity each day during PE, recess, and even academic classes; and to educate administrators, teachers, students and parents about the importance of eating well and staying active.

From Alabama to Wyoming, state offices of AFHK have been established, and already have made strides ? quite literally. Colorado schools worked with the state?s PTA to develop a ?Walk to School? resource kit. In New York, a similar program was launched ? and this one got parents moving, too. Entitled ?Walk Your Children to School,? more than 10,000 families started the day with a family stroll. In Virginia, the state office of AFHK worked with Governor Warner to establish the ?Nutrition and Physical Activity Scorecard and Awards Program,? which rewards schools that implement proper nutrition and increased physical activity at school.

?Creating a healthy school environment, one where learning is supported by good nutrition and increased physical activity, is essential to the success of our students,? Warner said when he launched the program in 2004.

What can parents do? AFHK suggests parents join the fight on fat and become advocates for healthy kids by lobbying schools to:

■ Encourage administrators to provide 30 minutes recess daily.

■ Have middle & high school kids design their own exercise plan.

■ Create school-based Nutrition Nights.

■ Allow only foods that meet minimum nutrition standards to be sold during the school day.

■ Insist schools sell only 100% fruit juice, water or low-fat milk.

For more information about the VA program, log onto: http://www.healthyvirginians.virginia.gov/Students/index.cfm. For info on the benefits of ?An Apple a Day? and other nutritional ideas, log onto http://www.drgreene.com/21_1703.html.

Courtesy of ff4kids.com