Big Sky Kids Fit Club begins
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ST. IGNATIUS — With the advent of technology in America came a sedentary lifestyle filled with video games, television, couch potatoes and, at one point, Twinkies.
As the years went on, Americans got heavier as illnesses like heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol started to have more of an impact than for previous generations.
According to an October 2012 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 60 percent of adult Montanans are overweight and 23 percent are obese.
The trend seems to continue for children, as the same report stated nearly 12 percent of children ages 9 to 12 are overweight, while more than 10 percent are obese.
The report goes on to suggest that children between the ages of 2 and 5 have it worse; 15.9 percent are overweight while 12.2 percent are obese.
In light of this growing problem, some programs like Montana’s Big Sky Games are seeking to change all that.
“Our overall goal is just to get kids active,” said Executive Director Karen Sanford Gall. “Our world has changed in the last generation or so. We’re all employed indoors or indoors so much more than we used to be that it’s important for kids to find something they enjoy doing that includes physical activity. They should be mindful of the amount of physical activity they do each day.”
Big Sky Games has run the Shape Up Montana campaign for 11 years. The program, geared more toward adults than kids, is designed to help participants keep track of and increase their physical activity during February and March — two of the most gloomy, cold, wet months of the year.
Two years after starting Shape Up Montana, BSG started Big Sky Fit Kids, a program specifically tailored for children. Still, all programs took place out of the school setting, and as Sanford Gall observed, “School is the heart of a child’s day. We want to make that setting more healthy.”
To achieve this goal, BSG wrote a grant proposal to the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation “to get more physical activity into schools.” The organization received $30,000 and is piloting a new program, the Big Sky Fit Kids Club, at 30 schools throughout Montana. The program runs for three months beginning Feb. 1 and is designed for third, fourth and fifth graders.
“What schools agree to, if they choose to participate, is that kids will get another 90 minutes of physical activity every week in the months when it’s colder and people tend to stay inside more,” Sanford Gall said. “We had a lot of applications to pilot the program, and we narrowed it down to 30 schools. It’s going really well.”
St. Ignatius physical education teacher Marc Cutler applied for and received one of the programs, making St. Ignatius one of only 30 middle schools in the state to have such a program.
“It’s very important to be more physically active and stop playing video games,” Cutler said. “Stay outside; live healthy lives. The goal is to see how active we are and see if we can’t prove (how active we are).”
Cutler said 12 minutes of physical activity is the equivalent of running a mile. The kids keep track of how many 12-minute intervals they were active during the day and how many fruits and vegetables they eat, giving the results to Cutler, who then sends BSG the results and shares tips on what does and doesn’t work to other teachers hosting similar programs.
“I didn’t have any programs like this,” Cutler said of his childhood. “I wasn’t lucky enough. I think it would have been a great thing to have when I was a kid.”
Starting Feb. 1, Cutler has hosted a half-hour gym period three days a week at St. Ignatius Middle School. The games range from dodgeball to kickball, volleyball to basketball and football to tennis.
Cutler the kids have a blast, and if the program’s success were to be judged on laughter and smiles alone, his statement would be hard to contest.
“It’s going very well,” he said. “(The students) responded very well to it. They didn’t really know what to expect, same as me, but the kids have responded very well and really like coming to it. If I see them later in the day and they didn’t make it that morning, they’re disappointed.”
“We’re hoping next year we can start our second phase of (the Big Sky Fit Kids Club) and make it available to 100 schools,” Sanford Gall said.
