by Alan Wechsler, staff writer
timesunion.com
ALBANY — At the Montessori Magnet School, gym class has taken a strange turn.
At one end of the gym, students bounce foam balls on a tennis racket. On the other, kids try to keep a hula hoop spinning for 20 seconds. Other youths are balancing on a two-by-four, jumping rope or practicing throwing and catching a rubber ball.
Kiyonna Burden, a fourth-grader, has a big smile on her face. She has just passed the 60-second foam ball test — and is well on her way to getting a certificate for completing the PE Central Challenge.
Asked if she knew the purpose of it all, she looks puzzled for a moment. And then she remembers:
“Fitness,” she says, “gives you good health.”
The battle for the future of fitness is being fought in gym classes such as these. Amid rising concerns about childhood obesity and the effects of too much TV or video games, coaches and health teachers are asking: What can we do to get kids to exercise more?
Locally, you’ll find teachers giving out pedometers for walking contests. Physical education teachers are preaching the importance of nutrition, while at the same time looking for new ways — such as yoga or dance — to get children to enjoy exercise.
And the programs don’t stop at the end of the school day. Local YMCAs also are getting into he game, by deploying staff to try new programs meant to head off a life of lethargy before it begins. One local Y, for instance, even takes families to tour local supermarkets, discussing nutrition at the front lines of the war on obesity.
Experts are even looking toward the enemy — video games themselves — to encourage exercise in a digital age. New technology lets kids work out in real time while holding Wii-type devices that translate their movements onto a video game character.
“It’s slow progress. But we’re making progress,” says Mary Ann Kinnaird, physical education teacher at Albany’s Montessori school.
She brought the PE Challenge — the game with the balls and rackets — to her school after a colleague recommended it. It has a lot in common with other programs schools have launched to combat obesity: it’s fun, and it gets kids active. “They leave here dripping,” Kinnaird says.
Among children and adolescents, there always will be the athletes — the kids who love sports — who are in no danger of going to pot. It’s the rest of the under-18s that people worry about.
Between 1963 and 2003, the percentage of obese children in America ages 6 to 11 went up from 4.2 to 18.8. Among those 12-19, the percentage rose from 4.6 to 17.4 during that period, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. The numbers are based on a child’s body mass index, or BMI, a ratio of weight versus height.
“Kids are no longer in the parks out playing, no longer are they riding their bikes around with their buddies,” says Paul Reinisch, athletic director for the Troy City School District.
“Certain things that you would think that would be normal are lost arts — running technique, throwing a ball,” he adds. “You see in someone who’s 10 years old who hasn’t played games and run, they’re behind. Running and throwing and basic gross motor skills are lacking.”
Blame more than the electronic age. A few years ago, kids routinely had the run of their streets, playing with neighbors until dinner time. Today, many parents worry that something bad could happen to their children. They keep a much tighter reign on their kids, arranging playdates and planned activities instead of letting them run around unsupervised.
“I don’t think kids are climbing trees or playing field games,” says Chuck Waterstram, gym teacher at Dorothy Nolan Elementary School in Wilton. “Their upper-body strength isn’t what it used to be. But I will say we’re very conscious of that.”
The issue is more than just kids who can’t throw. Nationally, more than 280,000 Americans die from obesity-related causes each year, according to the National Institutes of Health. Obesity leads to costly and life-changing illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease.
State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli has called obesity a serious financial concern for New York, where obesity is said to cost the state $242 million a year in public and private medical expenses. More than a million young New Yorkers are said to be obese.
But schools are paying attention. The number of districts nationally that are spending money to improve physical education programs has grown from 43 percent in 2000 to 75 percent in 2006, according to a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey.
The issue is about more than just long-term health. Studies around the nation show that the more fit kids are, the better they do academically.
Locally, many school gym classes are reacting by spending less time on team sports like softball in favor of sports that keeps kids moving all the time
Dorothy Nolan, for instance, has installed a climbing wall, ropes and a cargo net in the gym.
“It’s not just a nice thing,” Waterstram says. “Aerobic fitness helps to grow brain cells. (Exercise) changes their biology to help them to learn.”
In the Bethlehem Central School District, gym teachers created soccer games with smaller teams, which gets the students running more often. They also teach “life skills” like ultimate Frisbee, golf, yoga, bowling, cross-country skiing, even ballroom dance.
“We don’t have students long enough to get them in shape,” says Fred Powers, the district’s supervisor of health and physical education. “We want to make sure they find a physical activity they have an interest in and hopefully continue that through life.”
Shenendehowa has even more choices — bocce, table tennis, self-defense, aerobics.
“There’s got to be something they like,” says Becky Carman, the district’s physical education administrator.
At Blue Creek Elementary in Colonie, gym teacher Reggie Daigle holds an early-morning walking club in the warmer weather. As many as 40 kids, plus some parents, have taken part.
In the end, though, advocates say parents need to get involved if they want to encourage exercise. And some do more than others.
Parent Justin Burns, whose two boys attend Blue Creek, says both kids like the walking program. Since the program began, they’ve also started going to a local gym with their father.
“It’s pretty early in the morning, but they get up,” he says. “They just can’t get enough exercise.”
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