Donna Spruijt-Metz, Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Preventive Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine, will present an overview of the KNOWME NETWORKS study — a program to develop a Mobile Body Area Network that monitors obesity indicators in minority youth.

The network, developed in conjunction with the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, will use a set of wearable wireless sensors that measure physical activity, stress, location in time and space, body fat and a number of other factors. Data will be immediately transmitted to a secure server for storage and analyses. The KNOWME device will be calibrated for the specific user, and researchers will be able to “ping” a participant who remains sedentary for too long, Spruijt-Metz says.

Her presentation includes findings of a study led by colleague Michael I. Goran, Ph.D., professor of preventive medicine, physiology and biophysics and pediatrics, and director of the USC Childhood Obesity Research Center at the Keck School of Medicine. The study looks at the impact of a computer-based education program on promoting physical activity in fourth-grade students.

Two Los Angeles County schools used interactive CD-ROMS for an eight-week long health curriculum, while two control schools received educational CD-ROMS not related to health. Researchers found that the program had a significant impact on obesity reduction in girls, but not in boys.

The results reflect the fact that girls and boys have very different activity levels and attitudes about activity, and that interventions will need to be tailored more specifically, Spruijt-Metz says. However, she believes the study also indicates that technology is an important tool in preventing obesity in youth.

“Technology gives us more objective and reliable measures than self-reporting,” she says. “It is particularly appealing because it offers immediate feedback and will allow interventionists and health professionals to respond directly to the child’s behavior as part of the intervention.”

Provided schools are given a choice on using this new technology then I think this is a good idea. It has the same ambitions as my Zippeddy project.

Play is serious business for KaBOOM!, a national non-profit aimed at locating and funding play spaces. The organization has launched a campaign to locate 100,000 play spaces — playgrounds, skate parks and field complexes — in 100 days in an effort to ensure there is a play space within walking distance of every child.

Through its online play space locator, KaBOOM! is asking parents, teachers and community leaders to enter and rate their local play spaces. For every play space entered, $1 will be donated to charity in the name of country music singer and two-time Dancing With the Stars winner Julianne Hough. The result will help parents locate the best play spaces in their area and provide an honest analysis to community leaders of whether they have enough quality play spaces, says CEO Darell Hammond.

Put play in your day and enjoy some fun and relaxing active family time by visiting your local Y on April 18 for YMCA Healthy Kids® Day.  The nation’s largest health day for children and families, YMCA Healthy Kids Day offers fun, engaging and creative activities for children and families and promotes year-long wellness and healthier living.  YMCA Healthy Kids Day events are free and open to all.

Teens can join the Get Fit By Finals Challenge at bodybymilk.com. Whether they’re star athletes or just wanting to improve their fitness level, the program has something for teens of all ability levels and interests to help them achieve their personal goals. To help motivate teens to get involved, Challenge participants will be eligible to win a variety of prizes, including sports equipment and a VIP experience at the 2009 NBA Finals. Participating schools also have a chance to win a gym makeover by showing how they rally their students to get fit.

Exclusive Get Fit Tips and Tools

• Exclusive NBA Training Videos: Teens can watch exclusive videos each week at bodybymilk.com to get the inside scoop on how the pros stay fit and healthy. Featuring some of the best players from the NBA and WNBA, as well as NBA trainers and sports dietitians, each video covers different fitness or nutrition topics to help guide teens on the road to fitness, NBA-style.
• Get Fit “Daily Drills”: Teens can receive daily video tips from NBA pros suggesting simple behavior modifications they can make each day to help them Get Fit. Teens can get their Daily Drills online or they can opt to receive them via e-mail - whatever suits them best!
• Online Personal Fitness Tracker: To help them stay on track with their fitness routine, teens will receive a free Personal Fitness Tracker when they sign up for the Get Fit By Finals Challenge. This exclusive online tool helps them log their minutes of daily exercise and milk consumption, journal their progress towards reaching their personal goal, and assign a “Get Fit Champion” to follow along and provide motivation. Some studies suggest journaling can be an effective way of reaching personal fitness and health goals.
• Get Fit “To Go”: Teens won’t have to go far to get expert fitness tips and exclusive NBA content. The Get Fit “widget” is a one-stop shop for program information, serving up weekly videos, Daily Drills and a link to their Personal Fitness Tracker - all from the convenience of their own social network page or desktop. Teens can grab the widget at bodybymilk.com - then they’re good to go!

Get Fit Rewards

Getting fit can be a rewarding experience - especially with the support of Milk and the NBA. When teens join the Get Fit By Finals Challenge, they’ll receive a special Get Fit rewards package featuring discounts on fitness gear. Frequent “mini-challenges” will encourage teens to show how they’re getting fit for the chance to bag some sweet rewards, and teens who show how they’re getting fit using their Personal Fitness Tracker will be eligible to win trips to the NBA Playoffs and a grand prize of an all-expenses-paid VIP experience at the 2009 NBA Finals. Plus, there are cool sweepstakes prizes for all teens, whether or not they join the Challenge.

Get the Body You Want

Being active and eating right is key to getting fit and maintaining a healthy weight - and it’s important to think about what you drink. Regular exercise and a healthy diet that includes drinking lowfat or fat free milk is not only a healthier choice; it can also help teens look and feel their best.

In fact, studies suggest that teens who drink milk instead of sugary drinks tend to be leaner than teens who don’t.

Get Fit By Finals encourages teens to drink 3 glasses of lowfat or fat free milk a day to help get the nine essential nutrients active bodies need, including calcium, protein, vitamin D and potassium. It’s a simple behavior change that can add up to make a big difference. Choosing lowfat or fat free milk over nutrient void beverages is one easy way teens can cut out empty calories and in their place, get important nutrients to help them look and feel healthy.

A US team reached the figure after measuring the body’s oxygen demand in some 100 people walking on a treadmill.

They wrote in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine that a pedometer alone was not enough to gauge exercise as it gave no data on intensity.

US and UK guidelines urge half an hour of moderate exercise five days a week.

But there is often confusion as to what constitutes moderate exercise, and the amount of gardening, housework or walking needed to confer health benefits.

Researchers at the San Diego State University based their conclusions on exercise tests given to 97 healthy adults who had an average age of 32.

In general, men needed to walk at a pace of 92 to 102 steps per minute to achieve a moderately intense workout for their hearts. The range for women was between 91 and 115 steps per minute.

“Because health benefits can be achieved with bouts of exercise lasting at least 10 minutes, a useful starting point is to try to accumulate 1000 steps in 10 minutes, before building up to 3000 steps in 30 minutes,” said Simon Marshall, lead researcher.

While this was a study targetted at adults, I hope that this research will spur further work examining targets for children.

School children who have a daily recess break behave better and are likely to learn more, according to a large study of more than 10,000 third-graders.

Researchers studying US girls and boys, 8 to 9 years old, found that a break of 15 minutes or longer was associated with better classroom behaviour (as rated by teachers).

But many kids now have less free time and engage in fewer physical activities at school because, in response to the US ”No Child Left Behind Act” of 2001, many school districts cut time allotted to recess in order to focus on reading and math.

The trend especially affects kids who are black, come from poor families, and go to public city schools.

The researchers concluded that “recess may play an important role in the learning, social development, and health of children in elementary school.” They encourage parents to learn about physical activity and recess programs when selecting a school for their child.

For kids, exercise means playing and being physically active. Kids exercise when they have gym class at school, soccer practice, or dance class. They’re also exercising when they’re at recess, riding bikes, or playing tag.

You might not be able to ensure your kids get a daily recess break at school, but you can make sure they’re active at home. Encourage kids to do a variety of activities so that they can work on these three elements:

1. Endurance – developed when kids regularly engage in aerobic activity
2. Strength – push-ups, stomach crunches, pull-ups, climbing, and wrestling all help tone and strengthen muscles
3. Flexibility – stretching exercises help improve flexibility, allowing muscles and joints to bend and move easily through their full range of motion

How much is enough? According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), all kids 2 years and older should get at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise on most, preferably all, days of the week.

It is thus unfortunate that legislators in georgia have passed a bill, called the Student Health and Physical Education Act, mandates that school provide annual assessments on children’s physical fitness and wellness:

Local legislators said that there are better things the Georgia General Assembly could be doing rather trying to regulate childhood obesity.

House Bill (H.B. 229) passed the Georgia House and is now headed to the Senate. The bill, called the Student Health and Physical Education Act, mandates that school provide annual assessments on children’s physical fitness and wellness.

It also mandates the results be put in a report to the governor and that there be a recognition program.

A similar bill failed last year in the Georgia General Assembly because officials were allowed to take body mass measurements. That wasn’t a part of this bill, but could be included later.

Sixteenth District Rep. Rick Crawford (D-Cedartown) voted against the bill, saying it was “yet another requirement” the state is putting on local systems.

“It mandates they do certain things,” he said. “I’m fine with them doing those things if the local boards decide they need them.”

State Sen. Bill Heath said he likes to reserve his comment until he sees the bill. However, he is dubious about its intentions.

“Our teachers need to focus on educating our children, not weighing them. My first priority is to see us move up in education from 49th in the nation,” Heath said.

Nearly 30 kids excitedly hopped along floppy, foldable grids laid out along the gym floor as an image of NBA star Jason Kidd boomed instructions on a digital projector stretching along the back wall.

This is exercise for children in the 21st century.

The children were demonstrating the Merrimack Valley YMCA’s new multimedia training system, called HOPSports. The interactive workout plan for kids, which became part of the after-school program at the Y a few months ago, was as fun as all the hype, said Jordan Clements of Andover, an 8-year-old in a hurry.

“Go, go, go,” Clements told the kids in front of her on the hopscotch grid. “I love to hop.”

Royal Philips Electronics of Andover recently partnered with HOPSports, a company that makes gym equipment with digitally recorded instruction by professional athletes, to provide the $18,000 training system to the YMCA free of charge. The companies donated the training system to promote good health in the community.

The training system, which the Merrimack Valley YMCA plans to eventually share with other area YMCAs, comes equipped with 90 pre-recorded interactive lessons by professional athletes that incorporate the hopscotch squares, stability balls, jump ropes and stretch bands to promote physical activity, nutrition and wellness.

“This drill works on their agility as well as their cardio,” said Amy Quinlan, a trainer at the YMCA, referring to the hopscotch workout. “It’s a foot drill that helps their coordination.”

Customized for today’s new media-savvy and often sedentary kids, the system, released in 2003, is visually interactive yet intensive, focusing on the importance of skills-based activity while providing valuable information on nutrition, anti-smoking and other topics.

Photo here.

Some $20 billion for school modernization and $1 billion for educational technology are among nearly $150 billion in funding targeted toward education in the House version of the new economic stimulus package, which lawmakers introduced Jan. 15.

Specifically the education portion includes:

• $41 billion to boost learning in local K-12 school districts through Title I ($13 billion), IDEA ($13 billion), a new School Modernization and Repair Program ($14 billion), and the Education Technology block-grant program ($1 billion);

• $79 billion in state fiscal relief to prevent cutbacks to key services, including $39 billion to local school districts and public colleges and universities using existing formulas, $15 billion to states as bonus grants for meeting key performance measures, and $25 billion to states for other high-priority needs, such as preventing the layoffs of public safety and other critical employees, including teachers;

• $6 billion in school modernization funds for colleges and universities; and

• Funding to make college more affordable, including $15.6 billion to increase the maximum Pell Grant amount by $500, from $4,850 to $5,350, and tax credits for up to $2,500 per year spent in college tuition.

Democratic leaders in Congress have pledged to have a bill ready for Obama to sign by mid-February.

With a unique blend of talent and resources, the National Park Service, the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation are focusing on a national epidemic – childhood obesity.

A grant of $200,000 over two years will pilot a multi-dimensional program expected to eventually span the entire length of the 469 mile long Blue Ridge Parkway.

The objective is to engage children and their families in activities that increase physical activity, improve nutritional choices, and increase awareness of the Blue Ridge Parkway as a recreational resource. The program will pilot initially in the Asheville, spearheaded by Olson Huff, M.D., who has a distinguished career in children’s health. He also co-chairs the Task Force on Obesity and Nutrition of the N.C. Health and Wellness Trust Fund Commission. Huff, the NPS, and the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation have convened a regional advisory board to maximize the program’s effectiveness with Dr. Huff serving as board chairman.

Blue Ridge Parkway Superintendent Phil Francis sees the national implications. “Our national parks have always been destinations for the expression of physical activity in unique environments. There is a lot of interest in our program across the [National Park] Service and our staff is excited about the prospect of a national model.”