Taking Action for Physical Education

Recent efforts to increase student access to physical education in NYC public schools and obtain data on schools compliance with state mandates for PE have been met with good news: The Department of Education has committed to spending $6.6 million to hire 50 more PE teachers and "conduct a comprehensive needs assessment to address barriers and move schools toward full PE compliance." As part of the city budget, this provision in will address school compliance with federal regulations requiring equal access to sports for girls. School wellness and physical education advocates celebrate this success as a first step to improve the quantity and quality of physical education provided to students in NYC public schools. Still, there is much more to be done in order to make significant changes.

In an effort to work toward these changes, Bronx Health REACH has collaborated with the Phys. Ed. For All Coalition, in partnership with New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, Women’s City Club of NYC, The American Heart Association, and many others to draw attention to the disparities in PE programming our city’s children currently receive, as detailed in Comptroller Scott Stringer’s recent report, “Dropping the Ball: Disparities in Physical Education in NYC Public Schools.” According to the report, more than 400,000 students in NYC public schools do not have access to either a full-time, certified PE teacher, designated gym space, or nearby park for outdoor fitness activities. The Phys. Ed. For All Coalition has been crafting legislation for Intro 644 — a reporting bill that would require the Department of Education to track and report data on which schools are adhering to state mandates for physical education, including the required amount of time and certified teachers dedicated to PE and other demographic information. While the DOE is concerned that this bill could place an undue burden on individual schools, it would bring us one step closer to being able to identify which schools require additional assistance. Such transparency would ensure that all students receive the quality PE program they are entitled to by law.

Recent highlights of this campaign have included a press conference and oversight hearing led by City Councilmembers Dromm and Crowley, and Bronx Health REACH staff members Charmaine Ruddock and Kelly Moltzen featured in the media. Our coalition is optimistic about the future of the reporting bill and the impact it would have on the health of our city’s children. Given the evidence that high quality physical education is linked with reduced risk for obesity, enhanced focus and memory, and improved academic outcomes in children, increasing access to PE could have important implications for the overall health and success of future generations.

You can view NY1 coverage on Intro 644 here.

Reducing Obesity: Not Simple But Doable

Photo via k lachshand

Eating these is one way to reduce obesity.

James R. Knickman President & CEO at the New York StateHealth Foundation  asked the million dollar question in his Huffington Post piece, “What's Workingto Reduce Obesity?” In his post Mr. Knickman reveals that researchers from Drexel University studied a range of experiments aimed at reducing obesity, assessing how effective those strategies were. Researchers concluded that measures such as improving sidewalks and banning trans fats had strong impact but other approaches such as restaurants posting nutrition information had very little, to no impact.

So what does work to reduce obesity?

Mr. Knickman believes reducing obesity comes down to the following points:

- Better and more research will provide a better sense of the impact of various strategies reducing obesity in communities

- Different populations require different strategies so research can determine which approaches are most effective for high risk populations

- Seek out the economic and social benefits of interventions

- Success happens when communities and neighborhoods make it easy and affordable to be physically active and eat healthy foods, rather than one method such as banning trans fats

- All these healthy components add up to create “a neighborhood value, a point of pride” and becomes a part of the culture.

Mr. Knickman asks, “What is the best bang for your buck?” Here at the Bronx Health REACH Coalition we have launched the Towards A Healthier Bronx initiative using policy, systems and environmental improvements that increase access to healthy food, healthy beverages and opportunities for physical activity for over 75% of 675,215 residents residing in 12 high need South Bronx zip codes. Many public health campaigns rely heavily on clinical evidence, but fail to research the motivating factors relevant to that audience. To avoid this our campaign emphasizes actionable health behaviors.

Led by the Institute for Family Health, Bronx Health REACH was formed in 1999 to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes in diabetes and heart disease in African American and Latino communities in the southwest Bronx. Since then the Bronx Health REACH coalition has grown to include over 70 community-based organizations, 47 faith-based organizations, and health care providers. Bronx Health REACH serves as a national model of community empowerment demonstrating ways to build healthier communities by promoting healthy life-style behaviors.

The plan behind Towards A Healthier Bronx is:

- Increasing the number of bodegas and restaurants involved in incentive programs offering and promoting affordable healthy foods

- Increasing the number of farm stands making healthy food more affordable and available to the community

- Increasing the number of public and charter elementary schools emphasizing nutrition education and supporting related school policies

Partnering with bodega, deli and restaurant owners by providing them with training and education makes these initiatives not only a healthy benefit for their customers, but an economic benefit for the business owner. Encouraging chefs to attend monthly trainings on healthy food preparation results in offering patrons 2 to 3 healthier menu options. As New York City neighborhood demographics change, the restaurants and bodegas can now more easily adapt to the healthy choices their new customers are seeking resulting in those restaurant and bodega owners seeing more customers come into their stores and restaurants and gaining more revenue.

Mr. Knickman also states, “So if menu labeling isn't working for the target population--as the Drexel research and other studies suggest--we need to find and test other ways to make the healthy choice the easy choice.” Euny C. Lee, Evaluator and Policy Analyst at Bronx Health REACH agrees with Mr. Knickman citing a New York University study, “Calorie Labeling Has Barely Any Effecton Teenagers' or Parents' Food Purchases” which revealed that posting calories for food items at fast food restaurants had no impact on what consumer purchased.

Euny has moderated several focus groups with our faith-based coalition members to determine which types of messages encourage healthy behavior such as healthy eating and physical activity. Findings reveal educating the community about daily calorie intake to be important as most were not aware that you should consume no more than 2000 calories a day to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Messaging matters as well. Signs and posters promoting a health benefit rather than a scare tactic elicit more positive behavior changes. Interventions have to be customized to a specific demographic/ethnic group so that it is culturally and linguistically understandable and appropriate. Other results include social support such as having a friend or family member who you are accountable to for your actions to reach the desired health goals.

Focus group members felt this ad was not accurate saying the soda bottle should be bigger and would be more effective if other ailments such as diabetes and heart disease that causes stroke were listed.

Focus group members felt the above ad was actually a real advertisement selling juice boxes and a better message would have been the child drinking from a water bottle.

But the question still remains. “What is doable in the fight to reduce obesity?” Bronx Health REACH can point to a few projects. A city wide campaign was created to serve only low-fat and fat-free milk rather than whole milk at New York City public schools. Bronx Health REACH educated policy makers, Coalition members and residents from the community about obesity and the benefits of reduced fat milk. This led to the New York City Public school system adopting the policy and impacting over 1.1 million children in 1,579 schools as well as a model for public schools in 15 other states.

I don't know if the day will ever arrive where the only thing one needs to do is take a miracle pill that sheds those excess pounds without any physical effort while drinking a large vanilla milkshake every day. What I do know is these healthy initiatives together will begin slowing the overweight/obesity epidemic we now face.

Success Story: Lucero Elementary School Hosts Second Annual Family Fitness Night

On the evening of May 21^st, Lucero Elementary School in the Bronx held its second Family Fitness Night since the school opened in 2013. The event featured physical activity stations, a nutrition education workshop led by Corbin Hill and New Settlement Apartments, tastings from the SchoolFood Alternative Menu facilitated by George Edwards of Garden to Café, and a variety of healthy food samples for students and their families.

The event was organized by Lucero’s School Wellness Council, spearheaded by Ms. Muia, the PE teacher. The school has won Gold for the Excellence in School Wellness Award for the past two years, and this year Ms. Muia was recognized as runner up for School Wellness Champion of the Year. She was also chosen to participate in the NYC Department of Education’s new PE Focus Grant, an opportunity for select PE teachers to participate in professional development and promote best practices for physical education among other schools in their district.

Family Fitness Night was the culminating event of Fitness Week—a school-wide effort to promote physical activity among the student body. Each day of the week fostered awareness around a different activity, such as Move Around Monday and Touch Your Toes Tuesday. Regular announcements made over the intercom reminded students to get up and stay active throughout the school day. Since regular physical activity is linked with improved academic performance in addition to better health outcomes, we hope other schools will follow Lucero’s lead in providing more opportunities for students to be physically active.

Active Design Toolkit for Schools Celebrated at Earth School Rooftop Garden

The Partnership for a Healthier New York City released the Active Design Toolkit for Schools with a celebration at the Earth School’s rooftop garden, “the Fifth Street Farm.” The Earth School is a featured success story in the new toolkit, which was developed by the Partnership for a Healthier NYC in collaboration with representatives from New York City’s Departments of Health & Mental Hygiene, Education and Transportation. The Partnership for a Healthier Bronx and Partnership for a Healthier Manhattan, the Institute for Family Health and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai all worked in concert on the toolkit. A strong group of community advocates, parents and students gathered to mark the launch of the new publication, which promotes creative changes, like the Earth School’s rooftop garden, to guide schools to design spaces that make physical activity and healthy foods easy, accessible choices.

The Active Design Toolkit for Schools provides ideas, resources and tools to help school communities and advocates foster physical activity and promote well-being of students across New York City schools.  The focus areas include Active Recreation, Healthy Food and Beverage, Green Spaces and Nature, and Getting to and From School.

Among those in attendance was Charmaine Ruddock, Director of Bronx Health REACH at the Institute for Family Health. She noted, “With the crisis of overweight and obese children,  especially in the Bronx, the toolkit provides schools with the necessary information to make changes that have a real impact on how students interact with and move in their environment. Resources found in the toolkit are adaptable to a range of school settings. Active Design for Schools creates ample opportunities for children to be physically active in school settings where they spend so much of their time.”

The Active Design Toolkit for Schools believes that "Every child deserves a healthy, positive school environment. Children’s physical, emotional and social development all benefit from daily physical activity and healthy eating. Better fitness levels are also associated with better academic performance."

At present only 20% of New York City high-school students are getting 60 minutes of daily physical activity and less than half participate in daily school physical education.  Another shocking statistic is that 40% of New York City students in kindergarten through 12th grade are overweight or obese, and this could become a greater problem as they can be at greater risk for chronic diseases as they enter adulthood. The physical spaces in schools makes a difference as to whether children will or will not become physically active. The benefits of children being physically active at school include: more focus and attentiveness on school tasks, higher self-esteem, and lower risk of chronic diseases as they enter adulthood.

Two Bronx schools are included in the Active Design Toolkit for Schools: P.S. 87 in the Wakefield section of the Bronx and Jonathan D. Hyatt School (P.S. 154), located in Mott Haven. P.S. 87 transformed an asphalt yard into a sports park featuring a soccer field, running track, play equipment, and a water fountain. Built over three years, Jonathan D. Hyatt School (P.S. 154) created a  fruit and vegetable garden for the school's Gardening Afterschool club that also includes a chicken coop. Used as an outdoor classroom to educate students about healthy eating, the school would like to partner with the Department of Education SchoolFoods's Garden to Cafe program and create a student-run farm stand. Now there may be more farmers markets coming to a school near you. Click here to download a copy of the Active Design Toolkit for Schools.