Physical education teacher John Figueroa called on seniors Daysi Gutierrez and Sione Palu to demonstrate warm-up stretches and exercises in front of the entire Alta Vista student body.
“This routine takes five to seven minutes, and I’d recommend it from now until you croak,” Figueroa said, adding, “We’re out of shape. We’re dying. So we’re going to do something about it at Alta Vista.”
Last week, Healthy Ventures sponsored a two-hour program at Alta Vista, the 150-student continuation high school for the Mountain View-Los Altos School District. The program aimed to educate Alta Vista students about how to stay fit and eat well. In the past, Healthy Ventures — a child health network in Mountain View and Los Altos that is supported by local school districts, the cities, the Community Health Awareness Council, the YMCA and other organizations — has worked on issues such as dental health and immunization.
But this year, childhood obesity has taken the spotlight. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 16 percent of American youth between age 6 and 19 were overweight as of 2002.
To start off the program, case manager Hinda Weber asked the room full of Alta Vista teens to raise their hands if they knew anyone who had suffered from heart disease, stroke, obesity or diabetes.
With each malady Weber listed, a significant portion of hands in the room went up, showing how students’ lives are already affected by these health problems.
The main message of the program was to prevent illness later in life by improving eating and exercise habits now.
The curriculum included portions of the 2004 documentary film, “Super Size Me,” which focused on the lack of physical education and unhealthy lunch programs at schools around the country.
In one segment, a commentator referred to today’s students as “fat readers,” noting that federal No Child Left Behind laws required schools to focus so much on meeting testing standards that they had to cut back on physical education programs.
Alta Vista is not so different from the schools portrayed in the film, but the school also recognizes its role in encouraging students to make healthier choices. Figueroa acknowledged the urgency of childhood obesity, and announced his plan to reinstate fitness testing in his P.E. classes to make sure that students improve.
A dietician with Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, who visits Alta Vista regularly with the hospital’s “Health Van,” was also present. She announced that she has earned grants to purchase exercise equipment for the high school, as well as to subsidize healthier (and more expensive) options for the cafeteria menu.
This Healthy Ventures event was part of a larger community-wide effort to educate youth about nutrition and exercise. For the last two weeks, representatives from Healthy Ventures have worked with Alta Vista and Graham and Crittenden middle schools to deliver a similar curriculum. As a part of the program, students win prizes such as free memberships to the local YMCA, gym bags and Jamba Juice certificates. At Alta Vista, students received a healthy lunch after the event: a salad with yogurt for dessert.
In May, Healthy Ventures will help students plant a garden at Castro School.
E-mail Molly Tanenbaum at mtanenbaum@mv-voice.com
