By NANCY HILER
The North Bellmore School District students also climbed, reached their hands up and out, and jumped up and down as they followed voice-over prompts and kept pace with music resonating from a large screen on stage showing each state along their journey. The children were demonstrating one of the segments in a program called "Activity Works" at this month's Board of Education meeting.
Developed by North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, the pilot program for grades one to three combines grade-level curricula with exercise. "It's designed to help fight childhood obesity by adding extra physical activity to the school day," explained Lynne Smith, coordinator of the district's prevention program, which provides student substance abuse and violence prevention services.
The North Bellmore School District is one of five Long Island school districts piloting the anti-obesity initiative, said Nancy Copperman, director of public health initiatives at the Office of Community Health and Public Policy at North Shore-LIJ.
"As always, North Bellmore is ahead of the curve," district Superintendent of Schools Arnold Goldsmith commented about the pilot program.
LIJ polled educators about what they wanted to see in the program before designing it, Copperman said. "They wanted it to be fun, educational and easy to do," she explained. The pilot is an evaluative study, she said. "We're evaluating whether this makes a difference."
In-classroom activities
The "Activity Works" program provides toolkits for classroom teachers containing DVDs and CDs with 10-minute-activity segments involving stretching and moving with curriculum-based educational content in subjects such as social studies, math, music and art. This makes it easy for teachers to use the segments during their daily routines. Children are motivated to get involved with token rewards for participation, such as stickers, erasers and pencils.
In the North Bellmore School District, there is no set way of implementing the program in the classroom, Newbridge Road School physical-education teacher Michael Weiner said. Teachers use it in various ways, some as a morning warm-up, others as a mid-day break to refocus the students. Some teachers found "Activity Works" particularly useful in helping students regroup and re-energize when introduced in the middle of required grade-level testing.
The program makes it easy for classroom teachers to add to the 120 minutes per week of formal physical education that the state requires students to have. Under sate law, grades kindergarten through three must have physical education daily. Grades four to six must have physical education three days per week. The amounts exclude recess or in-class exercise.
Childhood obesity crisis
"Activity Works" was crafted as a tool in response to the current childhood obesity crisis. Childhood obesity is a national epidemic. About one in every six children from 2-year-old preschoolers through 19-year-old teenagers is considered obese in the U.S., according to a 2006 Journal of the American Medical Association report. That's 12.5 million children.
Compared with their parents' generation, the numbers are staggering. In 1964, only about one in every 25 children ages 6 through 11 years old was overweight. Now about one in every five children is considered heavy-set. A 2006 study found 33 percent of children ages 6 to 11 to be overweight nationally.
Closer to home, the New York State Department of Health estimates that one in four youngsters under the age of 18, or about 1.1 million young people, is obese across the state.
For most children, obesity is "the result of unhealthy eating patterns and too little physical activity," the New York State Health Department reports. "Since these habits are established in early childhood, efforts to prevent obesity should begin early."
As of September 2008, state law requires public schools outside of New York City to collect and report a summary of students' weight status to help guide childhood obesity prevention efforts. To protect student privacy, no personal identifying information is included.
"Childhood obesity has reached epidemic proportions in New York," said State Health Commissioner Richard F. Daines, M.D. when the law went into effect. "The students' weight data collected and reported with the assistance of school health professionals will help the state, counties, communities and school districts better assess what actions are needed to address this threat to our children's health."
Hopes for expansion
North Shore LIJ hopes to expand "Activity Works" beyond grades one to three, and eventually throughout Long Island, the state, perhaps nationwide. In addition to North Bellmore, the four other school districts participating are Glen Cove, Roosevelt, Valley Stream and Westbury. The program is financed through a $250,000 grant from Bank of America and a $50,000 legislative grant arranged by state Sen. Kemp Hannon, a Republican from Garden City.
"We are looking for funding to develop the curriculum for pre-K, kindergarten, and grade four to six levels," Copperman said. A news conference is tentatively scheduled for April 30 to announce the results of the pilot study.
Comments about this story? nhiler@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 234.
