March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Students exercise to a healthful beat> Newport schools take part in ACES Day

NEWPORT — The steady beat of music from the movie “Grease” opened the day at the Newport Elementary Schools on Monday. With 560 children packed into the Higgins Gymnasium, 15 junior high school cheerleaders kicked off All Children Exercising Simultaneously Day at Newport schools.

As cheerleaders tumbled, jumped, rocked and stepped to the quick beat, more than 1,000 hands picked up the rhythm with clapping. The scene was a pep rally for physical fitness.

The assembly set the stage for each class at the school to spend the next 20 minutes involved in physical activity as part of ACES Day, sponsored by the Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.

From the gym, students, teachers and aides dispersed into groups for running, jogging, walking, ball games or aerobics to fulfill their commitment to the day. As the children stretched their muscles and filled their lungs, similar scenes were taking place all over Maine.

Eight hundred Maine schools were invited to participate this week in the ACES program. For most participants, that was Monday. Other schools opted to join the national effort on Wednesday or simply commit to activity through the week, according to Lee Scott, staff director for the council and a health teacher at Mount Ararat High School in Topsham.

Although Scott had no figures for the number of participants on Monday, she said, “I was really pleased with the response. I got a lot of calls from schools telling us how they were participating or asking questions.”

The purpose of the event is to promote healthy lifestyles and increase public awareness of the need for daily physical activity for young people in Maine. Studies have shown that Maine children from low-income families may have a greater health risk, not only from lack of money, but also from a low level of activity.

“I find children want to be active,” said Sue Wright, physical education teacher at the school. “This day is a general awareness for all ages [of the importantce of physical activity].”

The push for increased physical activity, and particularly focusing on children, comes about because statistics show that 60 percent of Americans are not regularly active, and 25 percent are not active at all. The statistics were issued with the 1996 Surgeon General’s Report on Physical Activity and Health.

The report also said nearly half of American youths 12 to 21 years of age are not vigorously active on a regular basis. In addition, physical activity declines dramatically during adolescence. Daily enrollment in physical education classes declined among high school students from 42 in 1991 to 25 percent in 1995.

State and federal health officials cite the need to encourage more physical activity as a primary health objective. In the past, public health recommendations focused on vigorous activity for cardiorespiratory fitness. The recommendations evolved to add moderate levels of activity for numerous health benefits.


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