School Staff on Paths to Better Health

By Beth Bales

There are the “6-Blue Six Packs.” There’s the “Lone Ranger,” and the “Losing Inches Before Our Backsides Are a Yard Wide.” There’s even the group named “Big, Bald and Soon-to-be-Buff.”

The funny names add a touch of whimsy and a sense of fun to the four health and wellness contests well under way in Geneva’s school buildings.

Staff members are participating in:

– The Biggest Loser, for those vying to lose the most weight;

– Bull’s-eye, for those with a specific goal weight in mind;

– Ground Zero, for those trying to maintain their current weight;

– Step Ahead, with staffers using pedometers to track their steps daily.

More than 250 workers are participating in at least one of the contests, said Craig Collins, assistant superintendent for human resources for Geneva School District 304. “That’s a great first effort.”

Staff members previously had named overall general fitness as a top health issue, with weight loss and weight control No. 2, Collins said. Many corporations and private businesses are trying to encourage better health among their staffs, and this is the district’s first attempt to do just that.

“The basic notion is that a healthy person is a happy person and a happy person is going to be a productive person. And that’s good for kids,” said Collins.

It’s also good for students to see their teachers taking health and wellness seriously, and modeling good behavior, he said.

Several staff members at Geneva Middle School North have joined forces to try to lose 10 pounds each by spring break, which is when the contest ends. “It is going way too slowly for me,” said eighth- grade English teacher Kate Ritter. “The good news is that I haven’t given up, even though it is taking forever! I feel good.”

Her involvement with the pedometer challenge has “fallen by the wayside,” she said. “The pedometers don’t work well with ladies’ dress pants,” she pointed out. She’s simply trying to be more conscious of taking more steps, instead.

Cindy Renner is in the same group, wearing a pedometer and thus trying to be aware of walking as much as possible in any given day. That’s “down every aisle at the grocery store, walking farther to my car, walking the stairs at home more times than needed, etc,” she said.

She’s doing great, she said, adding, “I am almost at my target.”

Renner’s long-range goal is helping. Her triplet sons will graduate from college the same year she turns 50. “I’ve already decided I don’t want to be overweight on top of being sad when those two milestones hit me,” she said. With this program she’s now back below the number she swore she’d never go over. (I’m sure a whole bunch of us are familiar with that red line in the sand – or on the scale.)

She’s watching portion sizes and making healthier choices, similar to Weight Watchers, which she’s done before: “I’m eating everything, just not as much. I will never be able to give up chocolate!”

Wearing a pedometer daily has also helped make North librarian Gig Kimball think about how to walk more every day. “I’ll park at the far end of a parking lot, or I’ll go up or down every aisle at the Super Target, which is great for adding steps to the pedometer, but also, unfortunately, adds to my grocery bill,” she said.

She’s still waiting for the exercise bug to bite, but in the meantime, “I shoot for 7,000 to 8,000 steps a day, and it’s made me think about how to get more steps in.”

North secretary Kelley Borgie is in a group with the other two secretaries in the office. She’s focusing on simply cutting down on the sweets. “I have a major sweet tooth and it’s hard to resist cake and cookies,” she sighed. Her solution? The 100-calorie prepackaged snacks, part of enforced portion control, and low-fat ice cream treats. She’s ramping up the exercise, on a treadmill at home and an exercise class.

She’s lost six pounds. Yes, she’d like it to be more, but “every little bit helps.”

There is some friendly sabotage going on in the name of competition. At North, for example, some gung-ho exercisers have been known to surreptitiously pass around a Krispy Kreme doughnut, said Janet Nothnagel, one of the North coordinators. “Or a candy bar might appear; it’s just these little things to try to tempt them off the path,” she said.

The jokes make the contest more fun, as do the names some teams have created. She and nurse Pam Sroka are leading the effort at North, encouraging the staff with little nuggets of information, such as that 2,000 steps taken roughly equals a mile.

And for the staff luncheon served to mark the end of student testing, the fare included salad and chicken. “The administrators made it a point to feed us healthy food,” she said. “They’re supporting the teachers who made the choice to try to do this.”

Both middle schools and Geneva High School have weight rooms, plus GHS has a track. “People are walking the track in the morning and after classes,” said Dave Carli, who’s coordinating the GHS effort with Lisa Gillette. He estimated about 60 staffers are participating.

Jane Moellendorf is leading the program at Harrison Street Elementary, along with gym teacher Terri Brems. They, like Nothnagel, are trying to keep participants interested with nuggets of information, and even fun notations on the scale, such as “The scale is your friend.”

About 38 to 40 people at Harrison are participating, with the pedometer program probably the most popular. And though, a month- and-a-half into it, people are hitting a plateau, they’re still walking away – and not from the program, either. “People are surprised they are losing the weight,” Moellendorf said. She joked, “it all depends on what our Friday teacher treats are.”

Participation districtwide is much higher than Collins envisioned. “We thought, if we get 50, that would be a good thing,” Collins said. “The response is well beyond what we thought we’d have. We’re a little overwhelmed. These pedometers keep flying out of here.”

There’s a different bottom line involved than that of the participants, too. Wellness programs might lead to lasting changes. “If we can reduce the increase in our health insurance costs by 1 percent, we can save the district – and taxpayers – hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Collins said.

That’s a “weight loss” we can all get behind. In the meantime, may that Krispy Kreme doughnut keep circulating…

bbales10@@ameritech.net

(c) 2007 Daily Herald; Arlington Heights, Ill.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.