A Phys Ed Teacher Battles Tight Budgets And Childhood Obesity
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
Childhood obesity has long been a problem in this country. Rates of obesity have more than doubled in American children over the last three decades. Lately those rates have plateaued but haven't gone down. More than one-third of all kids in the U.S. today remain overweight or obese. One factor - they don't get enough exercise at school. NPR's Eric Westervelt tells us about a phys ed teacher in Arizona who is doing something about that.
ERIC WESTERVELT, BYLINE: First rule of Brinton Elementary School run club - keep those legs moving.
MINDY PRZEOR: Go, go, go.
WESTERVELT: For 13-year-old Kaprice Faraci and her twin sister, Kassidy, inspiration to keep moving struck one after-school afternoon in the third grade. Video games bored them, and they were playing outside when they spotted a small group of slightly older girls sweating and puffing down the street.
KAPRICE FARACI: We saw some girls running around the school and the neighborhood, and we were like, hey, we want to do that.
PRZEOR: So I'm Mindy Przeor, I teach at Brinton Elementary School in Mesa, part of Mesa Public Schools.
KAPRICE: She was really encouraging and helped us gain more confidence to be able to run the 5K race at the end of the season.
PRZEOR: Looking good, guys. You're at a minute 30.
WESTERVELT: Mindy Przeor created her running club because there were no after-school physical programs at the elementary level. A half-hour of PE twice a week just wasn't cutting it, and Arizona has the nation's seventh highest obesity rate for children between 10 and 17 years of age. She's now on a mission to help change that.
PRZEOR: Try to awaken the body and get the body healthy so that they are ready to learn. Because sitting in a classroom for eight hours with no activity isn't going to produce the results people are wanting. So it's - we started with about 20 kids and it's just been growing ever since.
WESTERVELT: Growing with children such as third-grader Taylor Dugi and her 13-year-old stepbrother, Antonio Conner. He's wearing a T-shirt with a school desk and the words, ancient torture device. Both he and 8-year-old Taylor are now loyal run club members.
TAYLOR: It sort of lets me let out my feelings and stuff. After school, I feel angry, and it's on a Thursday, so I just go to the running club. And I just run, and I feel like nobody's telling me what to do.
WESTERVELT: You feel better?
TAYLOR: Yeah.
WESTERVELT: Cheap therapy - I love it.
On a recent morning, children ranging in ages from 4 to 14 gather at a Mesa high school track at 7 a.m., before the searing Arizona heat sets in. It's first day of the club's summer session. There are warm-up sprints, a quarter-mile time trial, a mile run and grueling stair-climbing drills up and down the metal bleachers.
PRZEOR: Go, go, go, go get 'em. It's halfway up.
WESTERVELT: Brinton Elementary has a high percentage of low-income students. About 60 percent of the kids here get free or reduced lunch. And Arizona is one of the seven states in the nation with the biggest recent education cuts, including deep trims for non-classroom spending. Voters here have repeatedly refused to raise property taxes to help soften the spending cuts. So another part of Przeor's motivation is that running doesn't cost much - it can be done on your own without a coach, and she says, teaches a lot more than physical skills.
PRZEOR: Perseverance and setting goals, and there are so many just life skills that can help you be a successful person that you can gain from an activity like running.
WESTERVELT: For a run club, you just need shoes and some space.
PRZEOR: Yeah, pretty much. And then the OK from the principal - and my principal thought it was great to do something.
WESTERVELT: Przeor knows that one after-school and summer run club won't change the state's childhood obesity rate, but she's now collaborating with other elementary schools, slowly building a running revolution in Arizona, one run club and one race at a time.
PRZEOR: Nice work. (Cheering).
WESTERVELT: Eric Westervelt, NPR News, Mesa, Ariz.
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