Educators are fighting childhood obesity by showing kids that fitness is fun. On Thursday, October 6, thousands of students across the country will participate in Exercise US, a 10-hour exercise extravaganza that aims to instill healthy habits and a fondness for fitness from a young age.
Learn how you can eat to beat diabetes with these 19 delicious recipes!
According to the American Heart Association, one in three children in the United States are overweight or obese and this could be the first generation of kids whose life expectancy is shorter than its parents’, says Len Saunders, the creator of Exercise US and a physical education teacher, and also the author of Keeping Kids Fit. “Children need novelty and fun, and to understand why it’s important to exercise,” says Saunders. “With adults the emphasis seems to be on weight loss—but for kids that’s not a healthy picture to paint. What we really need to teach is that you’re not just exercising for now, but for the future. When you exercise and eat right and sleep well it’s an investment in future health.”
Related: 7 Healthy Habits to Pass on to Your Kids
Saunders has spent more than 20 years inspiring children to make that investment. In 1989 he launched Project ACES (All Children Exercise Simultaneously), a program that motivates students across the globe to work out by inviting them to be active all at the same time. It was the success of Project ACES that lead Saunders to organize Exercise US 3 years ago. If half an hour of simultaneous exercise was novel enough to motivate children, he thought, what would a 10-hour day of fitness do?
Think of Exercise US as a giant relay race: At 8:00 a.m. EST on Thursday, Saunders’ school, Valley View Elementary in Montville, New Jersey, and other schools along the East Coast will exercise for 15 minutes, setting off a wave of activity that will continue until it hits the final schools in California, Hawaii, Washington, and Alaska at 5:45 p.m. EST that same day. Hundreds of schools across the nation are signed up for 15-minute time slots, during which they’ll do everything from jumping rope to line dancing to running.
See what changes the healthiest schools in America are making
To kick off the event, the students at Saunders’s school will perform a mixture of aerobics, dancing, and calisthenics with music blasting in the background. The kids will have designated spots on the gym floor and will follow the direction of two student leaders, who were selected by lottery, to head up Valley View Elementary’s fitness routine.
Related: Suprising reasons your child is gaining weight—and what you can do to help
Exercise US is only in its third year but already more than 450 schools have signed up to participate. And it’s exactly the type of opportunity physical education teachers are looking for to get kids excited about exercise. “We’re making it a school spirit day,” says Lara Polakowski, a physical education and health teacher at Applegate Elementary School in Freehold, NJ. “We really like to make it a special day so the kids associate fitness with fun. They’re excited to wear their school colors and take 15 minutes out of class to exercise!”
Make healthier meals for your family with The Salt Solution Cookbook
When Applegate Elementary’s 1:45 p.m. time slot rolls around, music will play over the school’s speaker system and every teacher—equipped with exercise instructions provided by Polakowski—will stop whatever they’re doing and guide their students through an equipment-free, 15-minute workout of jumping jacks, lunges, chair squats, trunk twists, and more. “We want to show the children that you can be active without a lot of equipment and without a lot of space,” says Polakowski, whose school is participating in Exercise US for the second year. “We really stress being active for 60 minutes a day and want our students to see you don’t need a soccer ball and an entire soccer field to do that.”
SEARCH: Tips for keeping kids active
