School walks will focus on commitment to health
BY DAVE BENJAMIN
Staff Writer

DAVE BENJAMIN Pupils at Jackson's Crawford-Rodriguez Elementary School will be spending time this year walking around the building to get exercise. Teachers want to help the youngsters understand that exercise can be a fun activity.

JACKSON - It wasn't exactly easy in a 1956 movie for actor David Niven to travel "Around the World in 80 Days" in a hot air balloon.

But the youngsters at the Crawford-Rodriguez Elementary School will make the trip in less than 1,200 minutes, or 20 hours, by walking an extra half-hour a week for about 40 weeks.

By adding the distance walked by each child each week over the period of a school year, the pupils at Crawford-Rodriguez will certainly beat the hot air balloon flown by Niven.

Guidance counselor Beverly-Ann Foran thinks walking will do a world of good for the youngsters.

"Our Walk Around the World program is designed to get the students and staff out walking at least twice a week for 15 minutes at a time," she said. "It's to increase their activity by making it a fun activity as we track them going around the world."

Foran said Walk Around the World was developed in response to research which shows more and more children are becoming obese and that the present generation of young people may be the first generation to predecease their parents.

Foran has been compiling data that deals with childhood obesity and the trend toward Type 2 Diabetes, an adult onset diabetes which is now being found in more children.

Data shows that 64 percent of the United States population is overweight and that obesity will soon be the No. 1 preventable cause of death. Health care costs due to obesity range as high as $100 billion annually and 300,000 deaths are attributed to obesity.

Bigger portions of food, poor nutrition and unhealthy life styles all add up to nine million children, ages 6 to 19, being overweight, and obesity impedes learning and positive interaction with others, according to the data collected by Foran.

The information also shows that 80 percent of overweight children become obese adults.

"We have to address the whole child, not just the academic needs," said Foran. "It's social and emotional growth and learning life skills they can take with them. By starting at a younger age, hopefully we're ingraining the necessary tools for making them productive members of society."

All 900 children who attend the school (pre-K to grade 5), their teachers, and other staff members will participate in the weekly walking program. A world map in the hallway will be used to track the progress of each class.

"They'll be scheduled to walk twice a week," Principal Robert Rotante said. "They are going to be tracked as they walk around the world and we will see who gets back after going the distance."

Rotante said the program will incorporate math for the older children.

"The track is a quarter-mile around," he said. "So if the entire class does two laps they'll learn that a quarter-mile times two is a half-mile. If there are 22 students, they'll have to figure out how far the class walked."

Students will also learn that the circumference of the Earth is about 25,000 miles or eight times the distance from New York to Los Angeles.

Rotante said the program revolves around being healthy.

Foran said, "We have little sneakers to mark the map locations. Little sneakers will go west and little sneakers will go east. We will have charts each week. Each teacher will e-mail their cumulative total. Then I'll do a final total and track it on the map."

An indoor track at the school will allow the program to continue during inclement weather.

"This incorporates social studies as well," said Adrienne Jean-Denis, elementary supervisor. "Hopefully the parents will get involved when the children go home and tell them that their team has walked to Paris or London or some other city. Then families will be able to track the progress of their child's team."

Rotante said parents "think it's great that the kids will have a structured activity and get some extra exercise. At the same time, they tie in history, social studies and math."

"Walking is a healthy means of exercise," said Foran. "Most neighborhoods have sidewalks so the children can incorporate this anywhere."

Outside the school, teacher Annette Vetrano and her fifth-graders set the program in motion as they were the first class to start walking, while inside the world map in the hallway will show the progress being made throughout the year.