MONROE – This was the moment Frank Wagner Elementary School’s fourth-grade students had anticipated all year. But who could have predicted 9- and 10-year-olds would be moved to cheer for, of all things, vegetables?
“OK, this is it, planting day,” school nurse Miriam Ahearn said, standing in front of several raised garden beds brimming with potting soil.
Ten flats of small plastic containers were lined up nearby, each containing leafy plants of various sizes and shapes. Each species was a soldier in the children’s nutrition lessons.
Two kinds of corn stood stalk to stalk. Next came the tomatoes, teams of Roma and Sweet 100s, and the squash, butternut and acorn.
A long-stemmed plant waved a salute in the afternoon breeze. “You have cilantro,” Ahearn announced. “How many of you guys like salsa?”
“Ooh,” came the chorus of enthusiasm from the boys and girls of Steve Santamaria’s class.
Then came the peas, the unlikely vegetable hero that really pleased. Applause and shouts of “yea!” rose from the students.
Schools such as Frank Wagner find themselves at the forefront of the battle for healthier children.
Teaching children good eating habits and increasing their activity are the main areas where schools can have the biggest influence in slowing the epidemic of obesity among youth.
Minutes after the plants were introduced, Meg Newell, 9, was heeling in pea seedlings. “It’s fun,” she said. The part Jasmine Payne, 10, liked most was getting the plants out of the containers to put them in the ground.
“It’s a good way to do a class project with all your friends,” said Melissa Reyling, also 10.
Fun, for a lifetime, is the key in encouraging good eating habits in children and increasing their activity levels. That’s the goal of Frank Wagner’s vegetable garden, one of the activities Ahearn helped organize this year to help fight childhood obesity.
Nationally, about one in six kids is obese, which is likely to lead to a lifetime of health problems – and possibly shorter lives.
In Snohomish County, about 8 percent of eighth- and 12th-graders are obese, and 10.5 percent of 10th-graders are obese, according to 2002 statistics from the state Health Department.
Obesity is more common in kids from low-income families.
About half of Frank Wagner’s 557 students live in families with incomes low enough to qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches.
“It’s not a question of being sensible or silly when it comes to food choices,” said Adam Drewnowski, director of the Center for Public Health and Nutrition at the University of Washington. “It’s about being limited to those foods that you can afford.”
Whole grains, fish, fresh vegetables and fruit are more expensive than refined foods and those with added sugars and fats, he said.
“People are not poor by choice,” he said. “And they become obese primarily because they are poor.”
Eating whole-grain cereals, bread and oats can lower the risk for Type 2 diabetes and obesity, two recent medical studies concluded.
The boom in Type 2 diabetes in children is a result of being inactive, overweight and having unhealthy eating habits. Family history of the disease also plays a role.
African American, Hispanic and American Indian children are particularly at risk for developing the disease.
“My goal here is to teach the kids to be healthier and stronger,” Ahearn said. “We’re not trying to have them lose weight. We’re not trying to count calories. I just want them to have better choices and be more active.”
School and health
Gardening and walking programs are low-cost, low-tech ways for schools and communities to fight childhood obesity.
Gardening provides more than fresh air and exercise.
Studies, including one by Texas A&M University, show that children who garden are much more likely to eat fruits and vegetables, said Eve Pranis, spokeswoman for the National Gardening Association.
Nationally, an estimated 30,000 schools have gardening projects. More and more, schools are connecting gardening and nutrition to other subjects.
When students cook fresh foods, the skills they learn can be incorporated into in reading, math, social science and geography classes. Gardening skills have been used to help elementary students master science, history, math and language arts skills.
Ahearn’s plan involved linking with organizations throughout the community, including Valley General Hospital, master gardeners from Washington State University, the East County Senior Center and the YMCA. The National Gardening Association arranged for a Bellingham grower to provide garden plants.
Kari Black, a master gardener from the WSU Cooperative Extension Service, has tutored Frank Wagner’s third- and fourth-graders once a month since the beginning of the school year.
She’s taught them about beneficial bugs for organic pest control, care of gardening tools and worm bins.
How did students react to worm bins? “Oh! The grosser, the better,” she said. “With the worms, the first thing I’m asked almost inevitably is: ‘Can we eat them?’ “
Santamaria at Frank Wagner Elementary worked gardening into math lessons by having students draw plans for a garden, designing it on a grid, adding up the cost of seeds and tools and filling out an order form.
This made math “way more fun,” said 10-year-old Brandon Martin. “It encourages me to eat vegetables. I learned a lot of new vegetables I want to try: asparagus, eggplant and kale.”
Meanwhile, from February to April, physical education teacher Rose Dahlquist taught the school’s third- and fourth-graders how to use pedometers, which count their steps during her classes and at recess.
Ahearn mapped out a one-eighth mile course on the playground to do laps.
Once a week, third and fourth grade students were paired with members of the town’s senior center for half-hour walks as a way of keeping both groups moving.
The students’ steps were tallied for a symbolic walk across the state. A large map was taped to the walls in the gym. A paper sneaker indicated the progress of each class.
By April 6, the last day of the school’s walking program, 9-year-old Ashlee Brinkley was able to point to four beads on her shoe. Each bead marked a milestone: walking 5,000 steps.
“It’s really fun,” she said. “You should try it.”
Brinkley and a group of about 30 students bunched together on the playground to share stories of how far they had walked.
Fourth-grader Melissa Reyling earned 12 beads for 60,000 steps. Some of those were tacked on during walks near her house outside of school. “It can help you stay healthy,” she said.
Karla Sanchez-Ramirez, 10, said her school walking added up to 1,485 steps, slightly above the student average of about 1,000 steps. “You feel better staying fit,” she said.
The school’s hands down walking champ was Colby Haxby. His total: 120,000 steps, many added on out-of-school walks.
Haxby, 9, said he didn’t exercise much before the walking program, but did go outside some.
“It makes me feel really good,” he said. He hopes to continue exercising by walking and swimming this summer.
The pedometer helped motivate a son who before the program wouldn’t walk up the driveway, said his mom, Tracy Daniels.
“We were really concerned; he was gaining weight,” she said. “He seems much more energetic now.”
Walking came with its own classroom component. Stops at specific cities were tied to classroom work and chapters in the book, “A Horse’s Tale, Ten Adventures in One Hundred Years,” which uses Washington as its setting.
Many students come from families that don’t have money to join a health club, Ahearn said. That’s why she chose gardening and walking, activities students could encourage their families to do at home.
“I wanted to get kids active without telling them it’s exercise,” she said.
A community effort
Two years ago, Ahearn began thinking about how to start a fun health program at the school.
Last summer, she talked to Martha Dankers, who does community outreach for Valley General Hospital. The hospital wanted to launch a family walking program in February, to help fight exercise blahs caused by the gloomy winter weather.
Dankers planned on buying pedometers for participants. By including the school’s order in her own, the school got a substantial discount.
Some Wagner students said they started walking when their families joined the hospital’s Walkin’ in the Rain program, for which 500 adults and children signed up.
The hospital’s walking program motivated members of local Girl Scout Troop 3049 to earn a merit badge in walking. Eleven scouts now wear the badge, symbolized by a tennis shoe and a sock.
“Part of the badge was to talk about nutrition and snacks,” said Roxanne Vatter, a troop leader. “Then we talked about first aid, what kind of shoes to wear, and stretching exercises.”
None of the Monroe programs was expensive.
At the hospital, a $1,200 budget was combined with incentive gifts and prizes to walkers, donated by area businesses. “The message is this community is working together to do something that’s going to make us healthier,” Dankers said.
She’s already thinking about how to improve hospital’s walking program next year.
At Frank Wagner, activity levels went up and students got hands-on lessons in good nutrition because Ahearn saw the need.
The peas and beans will be ready for harvest before the end of the school year. Elementary school students participating in the YMCA’s summer day care program will take care of those that aren’t. Next fall, students will harvest the corn and squash.
The Sky Valley Food Bank will receive all the food – which may wind up on some the students’ dinner plates.
This year’s third graders are already looking forward to next year. It’ll be their turn to garden.
“The whole school has been keeping tabs on it,” Ahearn said.
A toolbox for parents
* What type of exercise best fits your personality? Take a quiz for kids at Body and Mind, a federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site: www.bam.gov/fit4life/misfit.asp
* Is my child overweight? An online calculator from Baylor College of Medicine is available at: www.bcm.tmc.edu/cnrc/consumer/nyc/vol1_03/bmi_calculator.htm
* Don’t have much room to garden? Use a 5-gallon bucket, advises Kari Black, a garden educator for the WSU Cooperative Extension in Snohomish County.
“The number one thing we recommend is cherry tomatoes, one of highest yields and highest nutritional values for the amount of space,” she said. Snow peas, green beans, carrots, lettuce and green onions also thrive in bucket gardening, she said.
For more information, call the Master Gardner Hotline at 425-357-6010.
Quick snack
Strawberry shakes (four servings)
1 10-once package sliced fresh, or frozen strawberries, thawed.
1/4 cup nonfat milk
1 quart fat-free vanilla ice cream, softened
Put 1/2 cup of the thawed berries in a blender; add milk and blend 30 seconds. Add ice cream and blend until nearly smooth. Stir and pour into glasses. (Save remaining berries for other snacks)
Source: “Fat Proof Your Child” by Joe Piscatella
Get Movin’
Get Movin’, a health fair to kick off a five-week program encouraging kids who don’t get much exercise to get active this summer, will be 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. June 26 at the Everett Mall.
The event will include health screenings, pedometers to track the number of steps taken each day, and exhibits.
The goal of the summer program is to get kids active for at least 20 minutes, three times a week.
Reporter Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.
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