Andrew McGrath is a physical education teacher at Cedar Point Elementary School in Bristow, as well as a graduate student at George Mason University studying overweight and obesity percentages among elementary school students. McGrath and the school have created Healthy Families Night, a free event to provide more information on health and well-being, to be held Wednesday from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
What have you found in your studies at GMU?
Prince William County has an alarmingly high percentage of youth [ages 2-18] who are either at risk of becoming overweight, are overweight, or are obese. Here at Cedar Point ES, out of the 122 fifth-graders that I assessed, 26.6 percent fell into that same category.
What do you have planned for the 18th?
Pharmacists will be on hand to assess blood pressure; for people with Type I diabetes or who are gluten intolerant, we’ll have shopping menus to help them out. We want parents to know what’s out there for those kids. We will [also] have approximately 25 to 30 vendors/businesses who can impact the community in making healthy choices.
What kinds of things do you do in class to help kids?
We had a sugar demonstration brought to us by the NOVA Cooperative Extension to show how much sugar is in a regular bottle of Gatorade and a 7-Eleven Big Gulp. It’s eye-opening to the kids. There’s 64 teaspoons in one bag – you see the other bag and say, ‘well, which do you think is better?’ They’ll pick up things like that very quickly. It’s not just standard skills and drills.
What else is in the works?
On Feb. 5 we applied for a $30,000 grant for Polar heart-rate monitors so the students actually know what it feels like to exercise. At least they can see what their heart rate is in class. I know what a six-minute mile feels like. If I can get students to feel like they’re in a heart-healthy zone, it’s a step forward.
