I. INTERNET RESOURCESA. www.letsmove.gov

The Let’s Move website is a government initiative started in 2010 by the first lady, Michelle Obama. The initiative looks educate and provide children with healthier lifestyle choices. The Let’s Move campaign began to eliminate childhood obesity and encourage parents, schools, and communities to make healthier choices. This organization is seeking to improve children’s lives by providing them information about healthy choices and how to implement them.

The 5 pillars of the initiative are: Creating a healthy start for children, Empowering parents and caregivers, Providing healthy food in schools, Improving access to healthy, affordable foods, Increasing physical activity. These goals have driven parents, schools, communities, and corporations to keep in mind the health of the children throughout the

county. The Let’s Move site provides many resources for healthier eating and being physically active. The PALA challenge encourages both adults and children to make healthier lifestyle choices. The website also provides set-by-step strategies to help children be successful in living healthier lives.

While visiting the website, I realized that I had heard of this before. However, I was not aware of its extent. I think that the initiative is a wonderful program and has the power to change many children’s lives. On the other hand, I think that there are significant limitations to the goals. It seems that much of the focus of the organization is in rural or inner city communities with underprivileged children. Starting in these places is great, but what about other types of communities? I would say another limitation is parents

P.E. Resource Packet Newsletter

By: Amy Howland

being aware of the program. Children’s lives are extremely impacted based on their parent’s choices. I just wonder how many parents are aware of the Let’s Move! And the helpful tips, tricks, and resources it provides. Overall, I was

impressed with how easy the website was to navigate and how well put together the site was. It was very enlightening to learn about the initiative and how I would want to incorporate it into my classroom learning.

The Pledge

America’s Move to Raise aHealthier Generation of Kidswww.LetsMove.gov

TheTHeOur PledgeIt’s our move.Our kids need to eat healthier food.They need to be more active.We all…parents, teachers, doctors, grocers and businesspeople…need to join together.We can’t let this generation grow up more likely to get diabetes, cancer or heart disease.Let’s Move on this crisis!Our work! work! work! all-digital-all-the-time world isn’t healthy for us or our kids.We need ways for the whole family to band together.Parents are looking for tips and tools.To help our kids choose good food.To help them learn that shooting hoops with friends beats shooting aliens with a laser.Kids were meant to move!If kids could be coaxed off computers, where would they go?Is there a park in the neighborhood?Is there a playground nearby?Do their schools have enough sports facilities?Where are they going to get that sixty minutes of activity needed each day?Kids need places to move!Our kids need to be eating healthier food.We need to help our schools and grocery stores offer better options.More fruit, less sugar. More vegetables, less fat.More knowledge, fewer empty calories.More cooperating to solve these problems.Let’s Move together!We believe every kid has the right to a healthy childhood.We can’t let this be the first generation in our history to grow up less healthy than their parents.The ingredients…better food + more activity…are clear.Let’s Move isn’t just noble, it’s a necessity.It’s not just a slogan, it’s our responsibility

Are you with us? Let’s Move!

B. www.choosemyplate.gov

MyPlate is sponsored by the U.S. government/USDA to encourage and remind people to make healthy eating choices. The icon, MyPlate, serves as the guideline to which types of foods to include in a balanced meal. MyPlate was created to help consumers understand how much fruits, vegetables, dairy, protein, and grains should be included in a meal.

The goal of MyPlate is to help American people understand the different types of foods and what is a healthy portion. The site gives information about each food category and how to incorporate foods into a healthy diet. The site also includes information about calories and weight management and gives the reader helpful tips on becoming healthier. The site emphases the importance of physical

fitness and gives tips on how to make fitness a routine. Lastly, the site offers several resources for people to use to live healthier lives. There are food plan worksheets, cookbooks, meal plans, posters, brochures, and materials in Spanish.

I really enjoyed exploring the MyPlate website. I think that the site has a lot of good resources for people who are beginning their health journey or even people who just want to learn more about being healthy. The visual graphic serves as a great reminder of how much and what foods to eat. The site also has plenty of resources to help make eating healthy easy. The website takes a lot of the guess work out of figuring out how to eat healthy and empowers people to make healthy lifestyle choices. A great advantage of MyPlate is that they have offered

the materials, information, and resources in Spanish which opens the door for more and more people to be informed about healthy food choices.

MyPlate Brochure- http://www.choosemyplate.gov/food-

groups/downloads/MyPlate/DG2010Brochure.pdf

C. http://kidshealth.org/kid/

Sponsored by Nemours Health Systems, KidsHealth looks to inform children and parents on many different aspects of health. The information presented has been reviewed by pediatricians and medical experts. Nemours put together the website to inform children of many different aspects of health ranging from physical, emotional, and behavioral issues that children and teens face. Talking about these types of topics under the umbrella of health give children and needs more information and freedom to talk about topics that are not as widely known.

The organization informs children on topics such as: puberty, the body, illness and injury, cooking and recipes, feelings, staying safe, health problems, and staying healthy. Under each topic, there are subtopics

that go into detail and have interactive questions for children to answer. There is also a Q&A section, videos, quizzes, games, and dictionary. All the information presented is in terms that a child would understand. The website’s goal is to inform children about many different aspects of health and answer questions that kids often have, but are afraid to ask.

As a future teacher, I think that it is really important to not only cover nutrition and physical fitness, but the entire health of the child. This website really delves deep into topics that may be overlooked when thinking about health, like the topic of feelings or illness. Having a portion of the site for children and a portion for parents is very beneficial for informing parents about health concerns. This site is interactive

which would keep the attention of students. Overall, I really liked the website because it has information about several aspects of health.

II. LITERATURE

Book Title: Get Up and Go!

Author: Nancy Carlson

Publisher/Date: Puffin Books, 2008

The book, Get Up and Go! is a simple read that sends a strong message to young children. The book begins by saying that all people are different sizes,

but everyone can exercise. The book notes that you are in charge of your own body and need to take care of it. The book then describes things in the body that benefit from exercise. The books overall message is to get kids to be motivated and excited about being active.

I really liked this book because it sends a clear message to children about how important being active is. The book is not a difficult read, so younger student would be able to read it by themselves and still understand the message. The illustrations are very cute and go with the words of the story. Highlighting areas of the body that benefit from exercise help students to learn about the anatomy of their body as well as how to take care of themselves. Overall, this book is a great read for younger students and motivates them to be active.

III. ARTICLES & RESEARCH

A. Title: More Gym for kids means less chance of obesity, Cornell study says Source: Newspaper- LA TimesAuthor: Mary MacVean Publishing Date: May 21, 2013

Summary: The article discusses how additional gym time can reduce body mass index for children kindergarten through fifth grade. The study found that the extra gym time was more

beneficial for boys than girls and that the extra time spent in P.E. did not harm test score. The article then discusses how despite the positive evidence and the surgeon general’s recommendations, many schools have decreased gym time. Reflection: I found this article interesting simply based on the facts that are stated. It was baffling for me to read that the evidence shows a reduction in BIM’s, but many schools are not

complying with guidelines that could increase the health of their students. To learn that an additional hour of PE time deduces BMI by 0.5% for all students brings to light the importance for nurturing the whole child. I feel that this article is important to read because it shows clear evidence that PE is beneficial to fighting the childhood obesity problem that the country is currently facing.

B. Title: Just 31% of California students pass P.E. tests Source: Newspaper- LA TimesAuthor: Teresa WatanabePublishing Date: December 3, 2011Summary: The article informs the reader of the low statics of students who are able to pass the California fitness tests. Budgets crises have put physical education as lower importance and the means of measuring aerobic capacity and body fat have become more accurate which can account for some of the decline in scores. The article then discusses some plans to improve the health of children in the LA Unified schools by getting grants to have salad bars, revamp cafeteria lunches, integration of physical activity, and to send P.E. teachers to elementary schools to train

classroom teachers. Despite the state efforts, the article shows that there are still decreasing physical fitness programs in schools state wide. Reflection: I really found this article interesting because it hits on some great points about how California handles P.E. I have grown up in CA, but I have little experience with the budget cutbacks. I also have very little experience with the ways the government is helping/providing healthier options for students. That being said, I was one of those students who could not pass the state standard P.E. tests. It is sad to learn that despite efforts to make physical fitness a priority, many schools continue to cut back P.E. time. Maybe it’s time the state offered more money to fix health and fitness programs in schools!

Article A

More gym for kids means less chance of obesity, Cornell study saysMay 21, 2013|By Mary MacVean

Students dance in a gym class. (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles…)

More physical education in kindergarten through fifth grade means less chance of obesity, especially for boys, researchers say.

The study provides some of the first evidence of a causal effect between gym and childhood obesity. It is to be published in the Journal of Health Economics.

A number of health organizations, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have advocated for increased gym class time as one response to the dramatic rise in childhood overweight and obesity. But there has not been much known about the effect of such classes, the researchers said.

They took information from a national registry, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, and from states that require minutes spent in physical education to determine the effects. More gym time reduces the probability of obesity among fifth-graders – more so among boys than girls, the study found. And it found that the increase in gym time did not replace academic time or harm test scores.

So what’s the result? An additional hour of gym time lowers the body mass index by 0.5 for all children, but 0.9 for boys. (BMI is a measure based on height and weight. A score over 25 indicates overweight.) Put another way, those extra 60 minutes reduce the probability that a fifth-grader is obese by 4.8 percentage points.  

The researchers found that the additional PE time has a negligible effect for girls. One explanation is that gym complements boys’ participation in organized sports and other structured activity, but for girls gym is a substitute for those other activities, says lead researcher John Cawley, a Cornell University professor of policy analysis and management.

Overall, that compares with other comprehensive interventions of diet and activity that resulted in a reduction of 1.9 to 3.3 BMI units after a year, the researchers wrote.

The prevalence of obese elementary school kids quadrupled from 1965 to 2000, and in 2009-10, a third of children ages 6 to 11 were overweight. The researchers, from Cornell, Emory and Lehigh universities, measured children who went to kindergarten in fall of 1998. Data were collected about them at several points through fifth grade, including gender, height and weight, as well as measures of their activity in and out of school and time watching TV.

The surgeon general urged all school systems to require 150 minutes per week of physical education; as of 2006, only 3.8% of elementary schools had done so.

And in the five years after implementation of No Child Left Behind law, evidence shows that 9% of school districts decreased gym time.

Some confounding factors could include that physical fit children are more likely to take part in gym class, and wealthier schools may be more likely to offer it. The researchers said they accounted for these possibilities. In addition, even in schools with a gym mandate, there’s often poor compliance, the researchers said.

mary.macvean@latimes.com

Article B

Just 31% of California students pass P.E. test

California schools Supt. Tom Torlakson seeks to improve the results by having celebrity athletes promote fitness. Recent budget problems have cut into funding for sports programs.December 03, 2011|By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times

Fewer than one-third of California students who took a statewide physical fitness test this year managed to pass all six areas assessed, new results show.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, a longtime cross-country coach who has made physical fitness a signature issue, announced the results this week as he launched a program to improve children's health. The campaign will use such celebrity athletes as NBA all-star Bill Walton and others to visit schools to urge students to drink more water, eat more fruits and vegetables and increase their exercise.

"When only 31% of children are physically fit, that's a public health challenge we can't wait to address," Torlakson said in a statement.

The results for the 1.34 million students tested in fifth, seventh and ninth grades showed a decline in all three grades over last year. Scores had been steadily improving since 2006. To pass the test, or score what state officials call a "healthy fitness zone," a ninth-grade male, 5 feet 6 and 150 pounds, would need to run a mile in nine minutes, perform at least 16 push-ups and do at least 24 curl-ups. Body fat is also measured, along with flexibility.

About 25% of fifth-graders passed all six sections; 32% of seventh-graders and 36.8% of ninth-graders did so.

Linda Hooper, a state education department consultant, said scores dipped this year in large part because two of the sections — those measuring aerobic capacity and body fat — used more accurate measurements. But she said another factor was budget cuts that have pared back physical education and sports programs across the state.

Hooper said she was particularly concerned about "a pretty major dip" in the fitness levels of elementary students, which she attributed in part to the cutback in physical education teachers on campus.

"With the budget crisis, P.E. and athletics have become less important," she said.

Los Angeles Unified students scored slightly worse than the statewide average. Chad Fenwick, a district physical education advisor, said California's largest school system had long lagged behind the state, in part because many students are low income, a socioeconomic factor correlated with lower fitness levels. Yet scores have steadily improved in the last seven years — 49.2% of ninth-graders passed five of six sections this year, the state target, compared to 26% in 2004, he said.

This year, scores dropped largely because of the section changes, he said.

Among other initiatives to improve children's health, Fenwick said, the district has received a state grant for the last four years to send a credentialed physical education teacher to about 60 elementary schools to work with students and train classroom teachers. Although the state now allows districts to use that money to meet other needs, L.A. Unified has kept its physical education program, he said.

This year, the district also revamped its cafeteria menu, replacing such items as chocolate milk and French fries for more healthful fare.

But Fenwick said budget cuts in the last two years have hurt high school physical education programs, boosting class sizes to as high as 80. "Class sizes are up pretty dramatically, and it's another thing that worries us," he said.

Those concerns are shared statewide. A survey released last month by the California State PTA found that 75% of the 1,600 members polled said their school's physical education and sports programs had been eliminated or reduced. Restoring such programs was the top health concern cited.

Torlakson's new campaign, Team California for Healthy Kids, will encourage schools to apply for grants for salad bars, form partnerships with farmers markets, integrate physical activity into instruction and other activities.

The 2011 Physical Fitness Test results are available on the California Department of Education website under Physical Fitness Testing. Information on the Team California for Healthy Kids initiative is available under Team California for Healthy Kids — Initiatives & Programs.