Building a fit community

By DAVID HULSE

ELDRED, NY — According to a 2003 letter from the U.S. Surgeon General, “Overweight and obesity are the fastest-growing causes of preventable disease and death in America. Nearly two out of every three Americans are overweight or obese. One out of every eight deaths in America is caused by an illness directly related to overweight and obesity.

“An unprecedented number of American children are carrying excess body weight. That excess weight significantly increases our kids’ risk factors for a range of health problems.”

With that in mind, Eldred Central School (ECS) officials are instituting a new physical education grant to try to make regular aerobic exercise and better diet into concerns that students will take with them beyond their school years.

ECS Superintendent Dr. Ivan Katz said the district will do it with the help of some $400,000 it will receive over the next three years. The money will come from the Carol M. White Physical Education Grant, a competitive grant administered by the U.S. Department of Education. ECS, Monticello and Liberty schools were joint recipients of the grant, which totals $1.2 million.

The grant is not for organized interscholastic sports but will provide for a range of new equipment and activities for the physical education department at the school. But it’s more than that, said Katz. “The goal is to plan over three years, not just for equipment, but to transform physical education offerings to make them more meaningful for kids.”

“The idea is to get a little bit more enthusiasm, so when people leave school they will stay involved in physical exercise. The focus is on recreational activities over a lifetime,” said Al Wojtaszek, ECS director of physical education.

New equipment will play a big role. Wojtaszek said he wants to make a fitness center that goes beyond a weight room where football players “bulk up.”

The new fitness center, which would also be open to the public, would include treadmills, stationary bikes, stair-step machines and a rock-climbing wall. There will also be supporting technology, such as heart-monitoring equipment and computer software that would allow users to determine their body mass index, the overall fat percentage in body weight.

After high school, most people stop playing team sports that have been traditionally highlighted, so the new program will emphasize individual sports such as golf and tennis; new programs such as hiking and orienteering (compass reading in the wild) are being considered.

Other exercise regimes will be included dance, yoga and tai chi. “It’s the whole gamut,” Wojtaszek said.

Beyond that, the health curriculum would also be updated to make better nutritional decisions into a lifelong habit, Katz said.

While portions of the grant will be implemented into the current school year, others will require staff development to train four ECS instructors in the use of new and complicated technology and will be implemented in the following school year. “I’m planning staff development sessions over the summer to accomplish that,” Katz said.

Katz, who is a former Olympic wrestler himself, is administering the grant for the three districts, essentially donating his time in payment of the matching funds ECS needed to provide.

He says he knows that the grant will be successful because he’s already seen its successful application at Roscoe Central School, which won the same grant several years ago.