Healthy winter fun

Winter is the favorite culprit for the unusually low physical fitness levels among children in Maine. And while not all northern states join Maine at the bottom of national fitness measures, the effects of cold weather are obvious to anyone looking now at the playing fields, playgrounds and recreational areas across the state. November through March can be desolate months.

A nonprofit group called Ski Maine for Kids has for several years offered free or discounted ski passes, rental equipment and lessons for fifth-graders to encourage their involvement in this wintertime sport. The children are offered “passports” that contain tickets for three free skiing days at each of 16 participating ski areas, which are spread out all over Maine. It is a great introduction to the sport.

More recently, however, Ski Maine has expanded its mission. It has developed a winter sports fitness program for teachers of grades 3 through 12. It has included more winter sports such as snowshoeing, ice-skating and snowboarding to its suggestions and provides week-by-week strengthening, agility and flexibility exercises to help students enjoy a wide range of activities. The exercises – some of which are also found in an accompanying handbook for students – would be beneficial for almost any sport, so would be helpful even if students never made it to the ski slopes.

Ski Maine was careful to link its programs to Maine’s Learning Results and to offer to teachers lots of background principles, exercise descriptions and glossaries to get an class started no matter the teacher’s current abilities. Given the King administration’s interest in finding healthy alternatives to quickly rising medical bills in Maine, the program deserves widespread attention from state officials, teachers and parents.

The results of a lack of physical exercise in children can be seen years later in Maine’s higher-than-average rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease among adults. Lowering these rates demands difficult lifestyle changes in adults. Kids, however, may only need to be introduced to lifetime sports and activities to begin on a healthier path that will serve them well right through adulthood. Ski Maine offers an important guide and plenty of ways to have fun during the long months of winter. (For more information on the ski passport program, see www.skimaine.com or call 771-7975.)