Peak condition

Put a pedometer on a fifth-grader and tell him not to move around.

It’s like ordering somebody with hay fever not to sneeze.

It’s almost a physical impossibility. They jitter and jump and dance like there are ants in their pants.

But, then, that’s the point.

Spokane School District’s award-winning physical-education program has been strapping pedometers (in schools, they’re called “digiwalkers”) and heart-rate monitors on students for the last six years, reinventing the way kids, parents and teachers think about gym class.

“It’s actually pretty cool,” a huffing and puffing Natasha Brunson, 10, said during a PE class last week at Bemiss Elementary School. “We get to build up our strength. We get to pump our hearts. And when we grow up, we get to be healthy and strong.”

Earlier this month, the program received its third major chunk of federal funding, in the form of a nearly $500,000, three-year grant that’s part of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Previous grants supported the program in two-thirds of Spokane schools. Now, with the new funding, the program will be put in place throughout the district, says Karen Cowan, K-12 fitness and health coordinator. The money will also help continue a research project through Eastern Washington University to find out how well the physical-education classes are working.

Preliminary findings suggest that the district’s health-club approach to fitness is working, Cowan says.

“It’s fun. It’s motivating. It’s individualized,” Cowan says. “From our research, we’re finding that kids are beginning to really realize that their health and fitness is their responsibility.”

The lessons taught in the physical-education classes aren’t just for kids. They apply to everybody.

Move more. Eat less junk. Eat more fruits and vegetables.

Kids still learn how to play soccer and volleyball and other team sports. But teachers, who now are thought of more like personal trainers, have changed the way they introduce sports.

“We always started at the end, in the traditional physical-education program,” Cowan says. “We started with the end of the process, which is to play the game … You need to understand, ‘Why is this game important to my long-term health?’

“Now kids learn that soccer is an aerobic activity. If I perform it for 20 minutes or more, it translates into an improvement in cardio-respiratory health, which is one of the five components of fitness … You don’t quit playing soccer; you just suddenly understand why soccer is important.”

But the reimagined gym classes also focus on “lifetime” activities such as inline skating, biking, yoga and ice skating. (Let’s face it: When was the last time, as an adult, you played a game of kickball?)

The emphasis on lifetime fitness is a good one, says Group Health pediatrician Dr. Deb Harper. But more needs to be done to combat the “huge” problem of childhood obesity, Harper says.

Harper often sees pre-pubescent patients already suffering from Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol.

“We’re going to implode with the weight of the health burden of obesity,” Harper says.

The physical-education program is a good start, she says. But kids also need to find ways to add more exercise into their days, such as walking to and from school. Unfortunately, that’s rarely possible, largely because of safety issues, she says.

Kids — and adults, too — also need to start adding two servings of fruits and vegetables at each meal. Snacks should come from those food groups as well, she says.

“I don’t think parents get the message,” Harper says. “They get what we’re saying. … It’s so hard to change habits. Helping people change behavior is something doctors are not really good at.”

Teri Snell, a physical-education teacher at Garfield Elementary School, wishes parents could be more involved in the fitness program. Nevertheless, she says she’s happy with the program’s results so far.

“I’m not saying kids are fit from this new program,” Snell says. “All I can say for sure is they’re learning a lifestyle, and hopefully they can make a choice.”

Even as Spokane School District beefs up its physical-education program, budget cuts have forced schools to slash some after-school sports.

Cowan hopes the health and fitness themes drilled into students in school will help them make good choices after school, even without school-sponsored activities.

“We are teaching the why and the how,” she says. “It’s just like math or reading or writing. If you have those basic tools, you have the ability to make the right choices in your life and live the kind of life you choose.”

The fifth-graders in Heidi Garvin’s gym class at Bemiss last week worked up a sweat and racked up the steps on their digiwalkers as they made their way through 10 fitness stations.

“Remember, calories are energy,” Garvin told the kids over the clomp, clomp, clomp of running shoes pounding the gym floor.

At one station, kids jumped rope. At another, they did crunches.

They did push-ups. Performed bicep curls while marching on a step. Hula hooped. Bounced weighted balls against the wall.

Unlike old-style gym classes, nobody sat out or stood in left field staring at the sky.

“Now it’s kind of like we’re all a team,” Snell says. “Never are we trying to pick who’s on what side.”

Once these kids grow up, Cowan hopes they will take their gym class lessons with them.

“What I would want them to understand is that their fitness and health is truly up to them,” she says. “It is about the choices you make every day.

“You don’t have to be a gifted athlete to be a finely tuned machine.”