By Leslie Collins
Northeast News
March 28, 2012

“This generation of children is going to be the first generation of children to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents,” said Holy Cross Catholic School Principal Jean Ferrara.

Instead of playing outside, more children are resorting to a sedentary lifestyle of watching television, playing video games and surfing the Internet. Combine that with poor eating habits and the outcome is grim.

“The doctors are telling us they’re already seeing high blood pressure in young children,” she said.

Since 1980, the population of overweight adolescents has doubled, according to a 2001 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report.

However, through a $5,000 PE4life grant, Holy Cross is hoping to battle that statistic and create a healthier generation.

“Healthy lifestyles start young,” Ferrara said.

Earlier this year, Holy Cross Catholic School was one of seven schools in the Kansas City metro area to receive grants through PE4life’s Kansas City Metro Project Phase II. The goal of the project is to help children embrace physical activity and increase the quality and quantity of physical activity throughout the school day. In addition, PE4life provides training and ongoing coaching to schools on how to provide engaging physical activities for youngsters. Grant funding will be used to purchase physical education related technology and equipment.

Holy Cross plans to use its grant to upgrade the sound system equipment for P.E. class and purchase a wider variety of music to pair with various physical activities.

“We really want to give the students an opportunity to hear very uplifting music,” Holy Cross Physical Education and 5th Grade Teacher David Rush said.

In addition, the school plans to purchase flat screen TVs and Xbox 360s with Kinect, which uses one’s body as the controller. In other words, to use Kinect the gamer must move his or her body to play the game. Games range from dancing to baseball and more.

Rush added they’re hoping to receive another $5,000 grant from PE4life this fall.

To further promote healthy lifestyles, PE4life requires schools to create a staff development team that ensures students remain physically active, even when it’s not P.E. time.

As part of its action plan, Holy Cross plans to implement three-minute “brain breaks” two to three times per day, which combines physical activity with mental stimulation. One example Ferrara used is the game “Rock, paper, scissors.” Instead of using their hands to simulate a rock, paper or scissors, students will use their whole body to convey the object. For example, a scissors requires students to jump and criss-cross their legs. Not only do the activities increase the body’s oxygen and blood flow, they stimulate the brain and help students to better retain the teacher’s lesson, Ferrara said.

“The teachers we talked to (at other schools) said they get more done during the day because of these brain breaks,” she said.

Another emphasis at Holy Cross will include a destination walk. Each class will choose a city to travel to in the U.S. and during lunch time, the class will walk or run laps to reach the city. Classes will learn facts about the city and how many miles they’ll need to walk or jog to arrive at their destination. Hallway maps will show each classes progress.

“It’s really about cross-curricular teaching,” Rush said.

Next year, Holy Cross plans to start a walking club as well as a cup stacking club.

“I just really want to put it out there that P.E.’s a valuable part of the education process,” Rush said. “If we can teach them healthy lifestyles now, it’s going to benefit them in their adult life.”