Welcome to this month's Health, Fitness & Nutrition section. Below you will find a number of articles, links, and various other resources to support the theme for May's issue of pelinks4U - National Physical Education and Sports.

In the first section, I cover an interesting program established in California to help educate children about health, nutrition, and social responsibility - The Edible Schoolyard, established by Alice Waters in 1995. Excerpts from a speech of hers about The Edible Schoolyard provide a useful framework for thinking about the importance of these issues.

The next section contains a number of resources and suggestions for starting a similar program in your own school or district, including information on other school-based gardening programs around the U.S., grant opportunities, and gardening tips.

The next section includes summaries of some recent articles on health, fitness & nutrition. Read the summary of "Is It Possible, Within a Four-Year Undergraduate Program, to Prepare Students Adequately to Teach Both Health Education and Physical Education?" for some interesting insights into this long-debated topic.

The summary of "Career Path for the Strength/Conditioning Professional," by Ken Mannie outlines a number of helpful suggestions for those interested or seeking information about this career field. Finally, the summary of "Nutritional Content of Foods Advertised During the Television Programs Children Watch Most," by Kristen Harrison, PhD, and Amy Marske, MA examines some of the underlying factors of childhood obesity in the U.S.

I encourage your feedback and questions in regard to this section. Please enjoy.

Leon Letson
Guest Health & Fitness Section Editor

HANDS-ON NUTRITION

Alice Waters, the founder of Chez Panisse Restaurant & Café in Berkeley, CA, and a prominent figure within the gourmet food world, launched The Edible Schoolyard in 1995, a program that challenged popular thinking about school nutrition and nutrition education. In conjunction with Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, Waters worked to turn an abandoned urban lot adjacent to the school into a dynamic learning center for health, nutrition, agriculture, and social responsibility. The school's dilapidated cafeteria was also converted into a kitchen/cooking center where the student's today prepare lunch for one another, as well as their teachers.

Waters has made recent efforts to extend these ideas into standard curriculum for all students, not just those fortunate enough to be involved with the program. Her School Lunch Initiative has been implemented in Berkeley's Unified School District. Below is an excerpt from a speech about The Edible Schoolyard given by Alice Waters on March 14, 1997 at a conference entitled "A Garden in Every School: A Conference Promoting the Integration of Garden-Based Education, Cooking and Nutrition, and Sustainable Agriculture Awareness in Schools."

"[In 1983] I moved to the house where I live now, and started driving past Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School on my way home from work at Chez Panisse - usually late at night, or early in the morning. Of course, at those hours there were never any kids around, and I was troubled by what I could see from the street. The school didn't look so good. In fact, it almost looked abandoned. I would see the graffiti on the windows and the burnt-out grass, and I would wonder what happened. Who was using this school? Who was taking care of it?

The responsibility for the physical deterioration of this school, and so many like it, lies not with the brave and underpaid teachers and administrators. Not at all. I learned that it was my responsibility, as part of a larger society that pays lip service to education, but has not been willing to make it a national priority that every child is taught as well as every other child. If we were only willing to do this - if we were all willing to take responsibility for what Jonathan Kozol has called the "savage inequalities" of American education - then we could not only turn the situation at King School around, we could renovate schools everywhere, so that the kids will know that we really care about them.

The aim of education is to provide children with a sense of purpose and a sense of possibility, and with skills and habits of thinking that will help them live in the world. A key way to learn these skills and habits is to learn how to eat well and how to eat right. A curriculum designed to educate both the senses and the conscience - a curriculum based on sustainable agriculture - will teach children their moral obligation to be caretakers and stewards of the finite resources of our planet. And it will teach them the joy of the table, the pleasures of real work, and the meaning of community."

Read the entire speech.

FEATURED WEBSITE: all-about-lowering-cholesterol.com - If you are having problems with high cholesterol, your LDL is too high or your HDL is too low, you'll really need to bookmark this site to review as time allows. This site is packed with tons of information. Did you know that avocados are helpful in lowering LDL and raising HDL? I eat an avocado in my green salad everyday because of this, and will discover more helpful information from this site..

Good Cholesterol Goes Bad (04.16.07) - Drugs that lower cholesterol, like Lipitor, Zocor and Crestor, have long been the pharma industry's biggest moneymaker, generating cumulative sales well in excess of $200 billion over two decades. They have saved untold thousands of people from heart attacks and strokes. But the reign of these medical monoliths is coming to an end, which underscores why the drug industry is on an urgent hunt for a savior. For a few years it thought it had one: good cholesterol, also known as high-density lipoprotein. Read more.

Eating for Lower Cholesterol: A Balanced Approach to Heart Health with Recipes Everyone Will Love (Paperback)

Get some nutritional information on onions. You may start to think of them more as 'nutritional medicine' rather than food. Also find out why it is so important to eat vegetables.

How to Eat to Lower Your Cholesterol - We can't change the genes that may contribute to high cholesterol, but we can change our diets. Eating to lower cholesterol is effective and can be delicious. Find out more.

How to Eat to Lower Triglycerides - Like high cholesterol, high levels of triglycerides in the blood are risk factors for heart disease. High triglycerides also increase the risk of pancreatitis. Read more.

... FOR STARTING YOUR OWN SCHOOL-BASED GARDENING PROGRAM

School-based gardening programs have been in existence for many years. Thanks to the assistance of the National Gardening Association (NGA) and their sister organization Kids Gardening, students, teachers, and parents can get involved with gardening as a community. Below are a number of resources from KidsGardening.org to help you get started.

Perhaps the first task in establishing a school-based gardening program in your school or district is finding funding. Numerous grants and fundraising ideas are available to assist you, including the few listed below.

GRANTS         

Youth Garden Grants
This grant opportunity is sponsored by The Home Depot. In 2008, 150 schools or organizations will be selected to receive gift cards to The Home Depot for gardening supplies, as well as other supportive materials from the NGA. The top 50 will receive $500 gift cards and the remaining 100 will receive $250 gift cards. The application deadline for this grant is Nov. 1, 2007, and early-bird applications postmarked for Oct. 1, 2007, or earlier, will be automatically entered into a drawing for an additional $100 gift card to The Home Depot.

Healthy Sprouts Award
This grant opportunity is sponsored by Gardener's Supply. In 2008, 20 schools or organizations will be selected to receive gift cards to Gardener’s Supply for gardening supplies, as well as other supportive materials from the NGA. The top five will receive $500 gift cards and the remaining 15 will receive $200 gift cards. The application deadline for this grant is Nov. 15, 2007.

FUNDRAISING IDEAS

Dutch Gardens Bulb Fundraising Program
This fundraising program sponsored by Dutch Gardens Bulbs is endorsed by the NGA. Two programs are offered annually: one for spring-flowering bulbs and one for summer-flowering bulbs. Schools and/or organizations participating in this program makes a profit of 50% on each sale, and Dutch Gardens Bulbs provides free shipping for all orders.

Kids Gardening has put together a number of classroom projects and informational materials to help educate and motivate teachers and their students.

Building Soil Nature's Way
This lesson gets your students outside and active. Through a series of activities that require a healthy dose of physical activity, students learn about the decomposition process and the value of caring for the environment.

Finding, Gathering, Saving Seeds
This lesson offers numerous interdisciplinary potential, including physical education, biology, and history. Teachers encourage their students to gather seeds (usually during the fall) while participating in outdoor activities. As a class, the students then work to identify and cultivate their findings.

The Q & A Library from the NGA offers helpful information for teachers and parents interested in prepping themselves for the inevitable stream of questions students and children will have during their gardening experiences.

Service Learning: Helping Kids and Communities Grow
This publication by Kids Gardening offers numerous classroom stories, curriculum connections, "how-to" articles, and related Web sites for helping you start your school-based gardening program and educating your students and community of its benefits.

This section is dedicated to the review of some recent articles on health, fitness, & nutrition. Articles included are: "Is It Possible, Within a Four-Year Undergraduate Program, to Prepare Students Adequately to Teach Both Health Education and Physical Education?" (Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, Nov./Dec. 2006),"Career Path for the Strength/Conditioning Professional," by Ken Mannie (Coach and Athletic Director Jan. 2007), and "Nutritional Content of Foods Advertised During the Television Programs Children Watch Most," by Kristen Harrison, PhD, and Amy Marske, MA (Journal of Public Health Sept. 2005).

Is It Possible, Within a Four-Year Undergraduate Program, to Prepare Students Adequately to Teach Both Health Education and Physical Education?

This article combines the insights and opinions of eleven different individuals in the health and physical education field. Following are a few selected summaries of individual responses. Each response is accompanied by an introduction to the contributor.

Earle Zeigler was the 2006 recipient of the Luther Halsey Culick Medal and AAHPERD Honor Award. Located in Richmond, BC, Zeigler remains active in the academic community and has published numerous papers and books on health education and physical education. Zeigler believes a minimum of five years is necessary to prepare students for adequately teaching both health education and physical education.

Babs Greene is a physical education teacher at Youth Middle School in Loganville, GA, and a graduate student at Georgia State University. Greene believes considerable more time - four years apiece - is necessary to adequately prepare students to teach these two subjects. The differences in teaching methodologies and classroom management strategies are Greene's primary reasons for this figure. In addition, the sheer volume of subject matter covered under health education and physical education is too much to be properly handled by a single individual with only four years of educational preparation.

Jack Kern is an associate professor at the University of Arkansas. Kern believes four years is adequate for preparing students to teach health education and physical education. Teacher preparation, Kern argues, should primarily focus on acquiring effective teaching skills, rather than committing to memory countless facts, figures, and theories that will no doubt undergo change during the students tenure as an educator.

continued top of next column

continued from previous column

Dennis Docheff is a professor at Central Missouri State University. Along the lines of Kern's critique, Docheff also argues that more of the undergraduate preparation of future educators needs to be devoted toward acquiring teaching skills, such as discipline and classroom management, grading techniques, equipment inventory/purchasing, etc. Docheff also notes that four years is somewhat of a misnomer in regard to the actual amount of time students devote coursework to teacher preparation. Basic, general education requirements consume approximately one to two years of the four years allotted for the obtainment of an undergraduate degree.

Darius Hodge is an undergraduate student studying kinesiology and health at Georgia State University. Hodge, much like some of the other respondents, believes four years is not enough time for adequate preparation, and that the majority of this time is devoted to studying the science behind health education and physical education, rather than learning teaching skills. He recommends following Zeigler's five-year plan, which would include two years of basic, general education requirements and one and a ½ years devoted to health education and physical education, respectively.

Vicky Bender is a teacher at Wilton Public School, in Wilton, ND, and a graduate student at North Dakota State University. Bender believes four years is indeed adequate for preparing students to teach both health education and physical education. She bases her opinion on the advances made in undergraduate curriculum, including more methodology courses, etc, over the last 20 years. Bender acknowledges, however, the complexity of health as a subject area, and believes more educators need to utilize continuing education opportunities to stay abreast with current research and trends.

Career Path for the Strength / Conditioning Professional – Ken Mannie

Ken Mannie is the head strength/conditioning coach at Michigan State University. In response to the growing interest in his profession, he has created a general outline for those interested in following a similar career path. Although this information does not pertain directly to K-12 students, it provides valuable information for physical educators who wish to nurture the specific interests of their students or expand upon their own career opportunities.

Although numerous certifications exist for strength/conditioning professionals, Mannie says education is the single-most determining factor for individuals interested in pursuing a career in this field. In particular, a minimum of an undergraduate degree in either physical education or kinesiology, with an emphasis in exercise science, is needed to garner serious consideration from potential employers at the high-school level. For those interested in collegiate or professional sports, a Masters degree or higher is strongly recommended, if not necessary.

Mannie considers coursework and experience particularly relevant to a strength/conditioning career and includes: human anatomy (structure and function), sport and exercise physiology, biomechanics of athletic movement, kinesiology, research methodologies (tests and measures), motor learning (concepts and applications), principles and practices in athletic training, coaching and sports psychology, and first aid (care and prevention).

Other valuable coursework outside of the training environment includes guidance and counseling, administration, and law. Finally, Mannie highlights the importance of internships as a means of boosting your resume and value as an applicant.

Nutritional Content of Foods Advertised During the Television Programs Children Watch Most – Kristen Harrison, PhD, and Amy Marske, MA

Harrison and Marske provide an in-depth look at some of the major factors contributing to the current obesity epidemic in children and young adults. In particular, they discuss the impact television advertising has had on this problem. The relationship between television advertising and childhood obesity can be traced back more than 20 years.

According to the authors, the average child today views more than 40,000 commercials annually, most of which center around toys, cereals, candies, and fast food. Furthermore, children aged 14 years or younger account for an estimated $14 billion in these goods purchased annually, and are believed to influence an additional $190 billion in the purchase of similar family goods.

Harrison and Marske attribute much of this phenomenon to the powers of marketing, specifically the questionable and often misleading ways in which manufacturers package their products. Clearly unhealthy foods are often advertised as beneficial contributors to health, focusing on buzz words like "natural," "fat-free," etc. Another contributor to this problem is the procurement of licensing agreements from media entities, such as Disney and Nickelodeon, that create many of the characters and programs from which kids watch and learn.

Although Harrison and Marske consider the advent of Nutritional Facts Labels in the mid-1990s a major step forward in the fight against poor nutrition, they recognize its general uselessness compared to the influence of pseudo-educational efforts of manufacturers in determining consumer purchasing decisions. With this reality as the framework for their study, Harrison and Marske worked to create an average unit of food, including its caloric and nutrient composition, based on the advertisements viewed by children during the television programs they watch most.

The average unit of food was 140g/ml, and contained approximately 229 calories. This unit of food was modest in terms of fat and sodium, but was particularly high in sugar. An individual basing their recommended daily intake of 2000 calories on this unit of food would not exceed recommended daily values (RDVs) of fat, saturated fat, or cholesterol, but his/her daily intake of fiber, Vitamin A, calcium, and iron would be inadequate. Sodium and sugar limits, however, would be high.

The single-most important factor Harrison and Marske identify as necessary for mitigating the negative influence of television advertising and over-consumption of nutritionally poor foods involves parental guidance. Children look to their parents for decision-making tools, which includes the ways in which their families organize/prioritize their food choices and nutritional health.