SIKESTON - Sikeston Middle School students are being encouraged to step up their activity level in physical education thanks to a donation from Missouri Delta Medical Center’s Delta Diabetes Center.
Laveta Williams, physical education teacher at the middle school, said she saw pedometers at a recent health conference used as a way to elicit more activity and hoped to get a few to use during her classes.
MDMC’s Delta Diabetes Center, which applies a multidisciplinary approach using the skills of physicians, nurses, physical therapists, dietitians and social workers, was already thinking along the same lines.
“One of our goals for 2005 was diabetes prevention in youth,” said Nan Thornton, diabetes educator for the Delta Diabetes Center.
“In the last decade there’s been an increased prevalence in type 2 diabetes among adolescents and children,” said Dr. Muhannad Al-Kilani, an endocrinologist at MDMC.
Figures vary depending on the region, but “10-45 percent of newly- diagnosed diabetic children and adolescents have type 2 diabetes compared to less than 2 percent before 1990,” Al-Kilani said. “We think the cause is increased prevalence of obesity in children and adolescents, decreased physical activity, increased time watching TV and playing computer and video games, and unhealthy eating habits.”
He said they now recommend screening children for type 2 diabetes at age 10 or puberty if they are obese, have a family history of diabetes or are a member of minority group as these are the high-risk groups.
Students at the middle school are ages 10-13, the very age group the Center decided to target, Thornton said. Encouraging more physical activity is among the recommendations to prevent obesity and the corresponding increased chance of diabetes.
Additionally, Thornton had personal experience using a pedometer. She said it definitely increased her awareness about daily activity and inspired her to make changes in her routine such as using the stairs instead of an elevator or choosing a parking space farther from the store.
The Center’s donation ended up being more than the middle school’s P.E. coaches had hoped for.
“They donated 60 pedometers,” Williams said. Between Williams and coach Homer Jackson, they get a maximum of 60 students during a P.E. session. “So that’s a full classroom set - that will cover our largest classes.”
The pedometers are attached to flag football belts to achieve a consistent placement on the students at the waist.
“It records how many steps the kids take,” Williams said. The number of steps are then used to gauge activity levels.
“The kids can begin to understand which activities have the most steps,” she said. “We want them to become aware of their own activity.”
The novelty of using the pedometers added a fun element as well. “They liked using them,” Williams said. “I think it was a very positive thing for our P.E. program.”
Williams and Jackson plan to collect data on various activities and come up with averages to be used as baselines as well as creative ways to use the pedometers to encourage an increase in activity among their students.
“There’s a lot more things we can do with these,” Williams said. They will only be used as a tool to encourage students, however. “There are no grades involved with the number of steps,” she said.
Thornton said working with the school is a good example of the community approach that must be taken to tackle the growing diabetes problem and that Sikeston has great facilities for those interested in increasing their activity.
“The opportunities are there,” agreed Williams, “and we would like to see the caretakers doing activities with their children. Even if you are just walking, it’s better than sitting.”
Thornton said she is excited about the pedometer program as it uses a positive, encouraging, empowering approach to increasing activity levels and is very affordable: pedometers can be purchased for as little as $5.
