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New York Daily News
Reading, writing & running
BY KATHLEEN LUCADAMO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Monday, March 14th, 2005
Sure, Johnny can read, but can he run? Is he fat? The city's public school parents are about to find out.
By next year, parents in half of the city's elementary schools will be getting fitness report cards for students that list weight and athletic ability.
"Parents need to know their kids' fitness levels so they can make changes," said Lori Benson, the Education Department's newly appointed fitness director.
The evaluations, known as fitnessgrams, are based on an exam that will have kids stretching, jogging, counting situps and being weighed.
Instead of grades, students will receive a two-page printout with bar charts that show if they are in the "healthy fitness zone," and note any progress they have made on each exercise since the last evaluation.
The reports will list personalized recommendations, such as "you should also eat a healthy diet including more fruits and vegetables."
Plans for the reports follow demands from lawmakers and health experts that schools join in the fight against childhood obesity.
Nearly half of the city's elementary students are overweight and one kindergartner in five is obese, according to the city Health Department.
Some students in poor neighborhoods with high obesity rates already are sweating through the exercises, Benson said.
At Middle School 279 in the Bronx, one of 100 schools conducting the evaluations, 14-year-old Shakira Sanchez was running laps in the gym on recent day.
The eighth-grader did 70 20-meter laps, more than enough to land her in the healthy zone for her age group.
"If you are out of shape, you'll find out," she warned.
An average girl her age should be able to complete at least 23 laps, Benson said.
There are also targets for situps, back lifts, pushups, stretches and body-mass index - a controversial way for measuring fitness by using height and weight.
A recent study found that 56% of NFL players are considered obese by BMI standards, which don't distinguish fat from muscle. But parents shouldn't rely solely on BMI and should focus on whether kids are winded after a few laps, Benson said.
"It's about, 'What is my heart rate?' It's about empowering kids," she said.
The city will create reports for 400 elementary schools, 20 middle schools and 20 high schools by next spring, Benson said.
Part of the delay in getting the information to parents has been training the city's 3,000 physical education teachers on the new curriculum behind the evaluations.
"A teacher who teaches language arts wants a student's grades to go up. So do I," said Mike Rosario, a physical education teacher at MS 279
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