Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools has been awarded a nearly $1.5 million federal grant to help fight childhood obesity and promote healthier lifestyles for students.
The Carol M. White Physical Education Program awarded grants to 98 physical-education projects and programs. Two other school systems in the state also received money -- Chapel Hill/Carrboro City schools and Catawba County Schools.
"Health and physical education is the basis of all learning," said Nancy Hoover, a health and physical-education program specialist with the school system. "With the rise in child obesity and obesity in parents and the health crisis, I think this is going to positively affect our whole county.
"If we start teaching children healthy habits while they're young, it's going to follow them through their whole life."
Hoover said that the grant money will be used to hire an assistant to work with her, buy curriculum guides for PE teachers, train PE teachers and buy 11 HOPSports fitness systems -- a workout program that leads children through such exercises as yoga, Pilates, dance, martial arts and core training.
Body Mass Index, or BMI, screenings in Forsyth County during the 2007-08 school year showed that 37 percent of first-grade students, 44 percent of fourth- and seventh-graders, and 38 percent of ninth-grade students are at-risk for being overweight.
Elizabeth Rogers, the adolescent-wellness program coordinator for Sara Lee Center for Women's Health at Forsyth Medical Center, has been assisting the school system with BMI screenings for the past two years.
Rogers said that during a pilot program of the HOPSports fitness systems last year, less-active students became more active.
"That will sort of level the playing field and will be great for those kids who need to be more active," Rogers said. "We know that getting kids more active is extremely important in improving their health."
The school system will also be working with the YMCA to get teachers healthy, Hoover said.
The partnership with the YMCA will allow teachers to use a database to track their weight, cholesterol and exercise.
School officials say they hope to help students change their habits and become healthier.
"When children are healthy, at school it helps attendance, attentiveness and academic achievement and you know what else, they're happy, it gets their endorphins going in the brain."
■ Lisa Boone-Wood can be reached at 727-7232 or at lboone-wood@wsjournal.com.
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