NEA Today Extra - March 2005

Battling Childhood Obesity

You've heard the alarm, but it bears repeating: Some 18 million kids are now officially overweight or obese, and the numbers are growing so fast that many are calling it a national crisis. Can educators do anything to reserve the tide? The March NEA Today cover story looks at school-based health programs and nutrition policies that are making a difference. Here are more resources to help you fight the battle of the bulge in your school.

Visit the SmartBODY Fitness Information Center, an NEA Health Information Network Web site devoted to fitness, weight management, and stress reduction. Educators can tap into model fitness programs, lesson plans, and discussion forums.

Calculate your body mass index. Stop guessing whether you or your students are in the danger zone and learn what it really means to be overweight or obese.

Renowned nutrition expert and O magazine columnist David Katz, M.D., director of the Yale Prevention Research Center at the Yale School of Medicine, answers your questions on how to make eating healthier for you, your family and your students.

Hungry for more? Check out these resources on obesity, nutrition, and fitness featured in the March cover story:

• Action for Healthy Kids , a group of 40 health and education agencies (including NEA), works to create schools that support sound nutrition and physical activity as part of a total learning environment. Check out the tools for action and join your state team to advocate for children's nutrition and physical activity in schools.
  
  
• Making It Happen – School Nutrition Success Stories   tells the stories of 32 schools and school districts that implemented innovative approaches to improve the nutritional quality of foods and beverages sold outside of federal meal programs.
  
  
• The Physcians Committee for Responsible Medicine's School Lunch Report Card evaluates lunch menus for the nation's 11 largest school districts, and the Golden Carrot Awards honor innovative food service professionals.
  
  
• The Berkeley (CA) Unified School District was home to the nation's first school food policy in 1999. Learn more about how the district transformed its school cafeterias and students' eating habits.
  
  
• "Preventing Weight Problems Before They Become Too Hard to Solve," ( PDF, 8 pp.) from the National Association of State Boards of Education's December 2004 magazine, is full of charts, graphs, and fast facts on the childhood obesity epidemic. Also in that issue, "Healthy Policies for Healthy Kids" (  PDF, 6 pp.) explores the lay-of-the-land around increasing physical activity and healthy eating in schools, including exemplary policies and the challenges of policy change.
  
  
• The Division of Adolescent and School Health of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has links to fact sheets, statistics, science-based strategies, and CDC and other federal agency publications on nutrition for schools and teens.

Table of Contents

Share Your Opinion: Do Rewards Motivate Students?

New York teacher John Perricone has had it with the idea that children must be motivated (or, as he says, bribed) with external rewards to read, perform and behave. Rewards don't motivate children to learn, they only motivate children to get rewards, he says. What do you think? Does the promise of pizza parties, coupons and candies have a place in spurring kids to do their best in school? Or is it time to say "enough is enough"? Read Perricone's essay, and add your own thoughts to our online discussion (NEA members only; registration required).

Next for 'No Child Left Behind': High Schools

NEA calls the Bush Administration's plan to extend the "No Child Left Behind" Act (NCLB) and its standardized testing requirements into high school "premature" and says it's not what students need. Fixing and funding the law should be the priority, says NEA. A growing chorus of state lawmakers, media outlets, and other education groups agrees -- including, most recently, the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Nearly 50 national education, civil rights, disability, children's and citizens' groups, including NEA, have joined together to demand substantial changes to NCLB. Learn what the coalition is recommending to help the law meet its laudable goals of strong academic progress for all children.

Make your voice heard, too. Visit NEA's Legislative Action Center to e-mail your representatives in Congress about fixing and funding NCLB.

Teaching About the Asian Tsunami

Asia Source offers maps and profiles of the countries affected by December's tsunami, as well as interviews with leaders of international organizations and information on the work of local institutions in Asian countries.

Ask Asia has lesson plans, extended learning activities, downloadable maps, annotated links, and more. Lesson plans cover the immediate context to the events leading up to and the hours following the earthquake and tsunami, and the use of history to learn ways to avert a similar crisis in the future. You can submit your own teaching approach or request materials online.

Your grade 8-12 students can participate in several videoconferences between March 1 and 10 on life after the tsunami. Hosted by Global Nomads Group and Asia Society, the videoconferences will link U.S. and Sri Lankan students.

Visit the Members & Educators area of nea.org for ideas about teaching about tsunamis and other disasters.

Education Planet has gathered links to lesson plans about the tsunami from National Geographic, the New York Times, Discovery School, and others.

Your donation is needed! Help Asian teachers affected by the tsunami through Education International's Tsunami Relief Program.

More Answers to Classroom Questions

What was the lamest excuse you ever got for a missing homework assignment? What are some good strategies for teaching math to students who speak little English? Here are additional answers from your colleagues to this month's Bulletin Board questions ( PDF, 1 pp).