WESTERN SKIES - June 4, 2005

*** SCHOOL FITNESS CLASS IN PUEBLO ***

ERIC WHITNEY: There's a lot of emphasis on measuring student achievement these days. Schools are judged to be succeeding or failing based on the percentage of kids who pass certain tests, or go on to college. But there's another worrying measurement in schools these days: kids' waistlines. The number of school aged kids who are overweight or obese has more than doubled in the last thirty years. The rate is slightly higher for Hispanic kids. Pueblo's East High School is trying to do something about that. Anita Miller reports on a special class that's helping Latinas shape up.

ANITA MILLER: East High physical education teacher, Rochelle Garcia, watched a television reality show last year in which contestants competed to lose the most pounds in a six month period. Garcia liked the idea and approached the sixty-five, mostly female students in her two rhythms classes with a similar contest. She offered prizes to those who didn't necessarily lose the most weight, but improved their fitness levels the most over the semester.

[sound of applause]

MILLER: Last week, after a semester of hard work, the students got the prizes. So many of them attained their goals that the classes decided to raffle off the prizes. The loot included t-shirts, pedometers, and exercise videos and books.

[sound of music and Garcia counting backwards]

MILLER: This payoff came after a lot of hard work. Garcia says the goals were about more than just shedding pounds.

ROCHELLE GARCIA: The goal of this class and for this project is for kids to obtain a healthy fitness level that is projected to their body weight and size; and also develop a physically active lifestyle that they can attain for their life.

MILLER: Students measure their weight, strength, flexibility levels, and body compositions three times during the semester. When the final results came in, almost all the students improved in their goal areas, with some making dramatic improvements.

Danielle Gallegos, a two-year participant in the class, has lost more than forty pounds, including several pounds this semester.

DANIELLE GALLEGOS: I can wear smaller clothes now. A lot smaller. I don't know, I feel a lot better about myself. I don't feel like I'm being judged when I'm coming to the school. I used to always be really nervous about it.

MILLER: Student Jeli Olivas says the class has helped her feel better about herself, too.

JELI OLIVAS: The Hollywood image for everybody is to be thin. And this class helped me actually accept my body image and just know that I can change it by toning it up and by just exercising. And after you see the results in this class it just makes you want to it do more.

MILLER: Garcia says that these kinds of boosts in self confidence are often more important than fitness stats. But that doesn't mean that her class is just about weight loss. She's teaming up with other staff at Pueblo East to emphasize healthy lifestyles. Once a week, school nurse Kelly Gallegos came in to talk about good eating habits and the right ways to get fit.

KELLY GALLEGOS: I think the girls are making educated choices now. I think that they think about nutrition when they're making choices when they eat. They'll come in and ask questions about fad diets. It's brought awareness to eating disorders. It's brought awareness to the different types of exercise that you need. And I think it's helped them to develop a better body image and realizing that everybody's made a little differently and that it's not one set weight for each person. There's a wide range of healthy weights and that it's becoming happy with the way you feel about your own body, that you have energy to do the things you want to do. And it's a lifelong commitment to nutrition and exercise and not just a fad diet for a week.

MILLER: Garcia also worked with school principal, Alan Nelms, to initiate a federally-funded breakfast program for the entire student body. The free breakfasts are available before second hour classes. Some days, more than six hundred students take advantage of the meals.

ALAN NELMS: In speaking with the teacher, that's when we decided how important nutrition was in the morning, because she wanted to make sure that her students got good protein and nutrition each and every day. From that discussion is where we went to the all-school program. In conjunction with the wellness center, who's been tracking the data for the program, we're watching tremendous results with exercise, nutrition. So if we could find a way to get every one of the students to participate in some exercise program, that would be my next venture in this school.

MILLER: Garcia is teaching the class again next semester and hopes to continue offering prizes. Prizes this year were partially funded by a grant from the Colorado Trust. Improvements in the all-school breakfasts are also planned for next semester, including more hot meals.

For Western Skies, I'm Anita Miller reporting from Pueblo.