GYM TEACHER WANTS TO GET KIDS HOPPING

Columbus Dispatch (Ohio)
October 20, 2004
BYLINE: Holly Zachariah

In her weekly gym class yesterday, Tess Fraser took a crack at the climbing wall, won a game of four square and giggled her way through a round of tether ball.

Forty minutes isn't very long for exercise, Tess conceded, and though she golfs and plays tug of war with her dog at home, the 11-year-old said she'd welcome the chance for more physical activity at school.

Her gym teacher agrees, but said money and the schedule won't allow it.

"We need to make exercise fun and put the responsibility for being fit back on the students, so they take ownership of their own health away from here," said Barb Russ, Tess's gym teacher at Creekview Intermediate School.

So, armed now with a grant of $436,749, district officials hope to bolster traditional gym classes and improve every student's health in the process.

Marysville was one of three Ohio districts awarded a Carol M. White Physical Education Program grant this month through the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Xenia and Toledo schools also received grants.

Marysville's three-year grant will pay for, among other things:

* Health assessments and the creation of a personal fitness plan for each of the district's 5,000 students.

* Exercise equipment, such as stationary bikes and elliptical machines, for the intermediate, middle and high schools.

* Outdoor fitness trails, which cover a series of exercise stations, at Creekview and the five elementary schools.

About 30 percent of American children ages 6 to 10 are overweight and more than 15 percent are obese, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

The growing problem is blamed in part on the increasing popularity of such chair-bound activities as computer use and video games, said Deb Stubbs, director of the
health center at Memorial Hospital of Union County.

Health officials nationwide are concerned by the number of children found to have what were traditionally adult diseases -- high blood pressure and diabetes among them. Those ailments, Stubbs said, are usually related to weight gain and a lack of exercise.
"It's so important that we get children more active earlier," Stubbs said, "and get them thinking about making good choices for their health."

The hospital staff will train Marysville teachers to do the assessments, and some of the grant money will allow the district's children who are most at risk to regularly use the health center's exercise equipment.

The district's 12 physical-education teachers plan to meet Friday to discuss the new program. The idea, Russ said, is that students will set their fitness goals and will work on reaching them while in gym, at recess and, hopefully, at home.

Since 2000, Marysville schools have received about $3 million in grants for educational materials and reading and literacy programs. Fitness grants are a natural extension, said district spokesman Tony Eufinger.

"A child's health and fitness impacts their ability to learn and to absorb information in the classroom," he said.