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Students Getting Real About Fitness: Elective Classes Aimed at Tackling Obesity and Promoting Nutrition Help Youths and Parents Shed Bad Health Habits

Posted on: Sunday, 1 January 2006, 15:00 CST

By Mary Ann Fergus, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Tribune

Jan. 1--As they try to stay fit, Kaleem Dawson and his mother take a cooking class and weigh in at his high school in Maywood. Eighth-grader Jaala Stewart can now run 10 minutes without stopping, a feat she achieved through an exercise program at her Uptown school.

And in Park Ridge, Michelle Beuchamp has shed 15 pounds through daily workouts and new eating habits.

The overweight students--and some of their parents--are participating in innovative new programs tackling childhood obesity and offered through their school health centers.

No longer just a place for a flu shot or asthma treatment, school-based centers across the state are combating childhood obesity with family cooking classes, individual and group diet and counseling sessions, walking clubs, even triathlon training.

While such elective programs are still being fine-tuned--many were launched in the last couple of years--health center directors say students and their parents are improving eating habits and getting more exercise.

Students who have lost weight are fewer in number, reflecting the difficulty of the task. But those involved in these efforts say they don't measure success by pounds lost or races won.

"To learn about physical activity is a success in itself," said Karen Berg, director of the Illinois Coalition for School Health Centers. "It's not necessarily realistic" to expect weight loss.

Instead, many of the centers are taking a long-term approach to teaching new exercise and eating habits to a generation carrying more weight than ever before. Sixteen percent of American children ages 6 to 19 are overweight, more than four times the number 30 years ago.

School health center staffs have made the issue a priority as more began seeing students with weight-related problems once found only in adults suffering with Type 2 diabetes, joint pain, hypertension or depression.

Among the more comprehensive programs is the six-week "Cooking with Heart and Soul" class at Proviso East High School in Maywood. In a home economics lab, volunteer guest chefs lead parents and teens in an after-school low-fat cooking class that includes a lecture on nutrition or stress management.

For the first time since the program started three years ago, the health center is inviting parents and teens to step onto scales. Its staff is checking blood pressure, cholesterol and signs of diabetes.

The center began offering the family cooking class after analyzing 2001 data that showed between 40 and 45 percent of the 1,300 students at the high school were overweight or obese.

Dr. Carolyn Montford, the school's psychologist and co-director of the cooking class, said the staff immediately knew they wanted to include parents in a weight program. Research has shown that students who have a connection to school, their family or a non-relative adult are more resilient, making them better able to cope with trauma and change, Montford said.

"We really wanted to do something with prevention rather than reacting to a crisis," said Montford, who is expanding the class to eight weeks next semester.

On a recent evening, parents and children exercised in the school hallways after making a large mixed green salad and putting several pans of low-fat lasagna in the ovens.

Parent Jayne Dawson shed 33 pounds after applying the tips she learned through taking the cooking classes with her son, Kaleem, a junior. Kaleem's weight has remained steady, but he has become more active, playing football, wrestling and lifting weights.

"A lot of foods I had been eating weren't as healthy as I thought," he said. The class "has made me think about how much we eat. I look at serving sizes now on packages."

Dawson, 43, said she started her weight loss efforts by removing the junk food in her home.

Classmate Darryl Cardine, also a junior at Proviso East, has dropped 35 pounds with the help of weekly private sessions with the health center staff. The school's nurse practitioner and Montford helped him realize that his sudden weight gain during adolescence was linked to the loss of his biological mother when he was 13. He was overeating to cope with his sadness.

By the time Darryl was a freshman, he weighed 245 pounds.

"I'm looking around at everyone else" at school, he said, "and they're fit and thin."

Darryl attributes his weight loss success--at 5-feet-5 he now weighs 210 pounds--to self-motivation and the support of others. Rather than eat when he's depressed, he now talks with friends or the health center staff.

At Uplift Community School in Chicago, which serves Grades 6 through 9, about 15 students participate in the Triathlon Nutrition Training program, or TNT. Their goal is to finish a scaled-down triathlon next summer. The kids swim, bike and run short distances.

On a recent blustery night Jaala Stewart, 13, played softball and raced in near darkness with a dozen other TNT students.

At 5 feet 3 inches, Jaala said she weighs between 160 and 170 pounds.

An outgoing girl with a quick smile, Jaala said her self-esteem is fine but that peer pressure played a role in her decision to join TNT.

"I was tired of people calling me names, even though I know it didn't matter," she said.

Pointing to the school's athletic field, Jaala said she has been able to run around it--about a quarter mile--without stopping, a first.

At Maine East High School, Michelle Beuchamp, 15, decided her freshman year was a good time to address the weight she gained after her family's move to a new town in 4th grade.

Just a couple of months into the health center's new "Reality P.E.," the teen has lost 15 pounds and said she's now addicted to her daily 50-minute elliptical machine workouts at the school fitness center.

"It keeps me focused," she said. "I don't go home and eat and sleep anymore."

The program, an elective physical education class graded based on attendance, combines an individual exercise plan with mental health and nutrition advice and support. A full physical exam before and after will track the progress of the 10 students in the pilot program this year.

At 5 feet 3 inches, Michelle is down to 200 pounds and wants to lose another 40.

Alexis Esmaili, 14, also a Maine East freshman, said her parents and siblings have begun exercising more since she joined the program.

"I don't feel alone anymore," Esmaili said. "I feel like I have more support."

Dr. Matt Longjohn, executive director of the Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children, said school-based programs involving parents are rare and commendable, but the entire community must promote healthy eating and exercise to create lasting results.

"They're doing what they can, and I'm sure they're making good progress with individuals, but those individuals are going to be faced with an unfriendly environment throughout their day and after the kids are out of school," Longjohn said. "We need long-term solutions, in addition to work like this."

mfergus@tribune.com

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Source: Chicago Tribune

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