Health and Wellness Happenings

The cold winter winds are blowing, snowflakes are dancing in the air, and icicles dangle from the roofs of buildings, but the warm sounds of laughter and joy of our students fills the gymnasiums of the Modell’s Sports Complex as they attend their Health and Wellness classes. As we embark into the third marking period and begin to sail towards the warmer months, the children will be participating in classes such as the Introduction to the Fitness Centers, Cooperative Games, Team Sports Skills, Creative Games, Indoor Team Sports.

The D-E Health and Wellness team recently completed their FitnessGram Review and Reflections with our Middle School students. Each student received a personal report in which each one of the five test areas of the FitnessGram was displayed. Students had the ability to view their scores from last Spring in addition to their results from this past Fall. Results of this evaluative test fell into three categories: 1) Healthy Fitness Zone (HFZ), 2) Needs Improvement (NI), or 3) Needs Improvement – Health Risk (NI-HR).

The FitnessGram is a helpful assessment that assists each youngster in helping him/her to discover a personal fitness level in the areas such as core, leg, and back flexibility, cardiovascular endurance, core and upper body strength. The test also explains the importance of maintaining each one of these areas to a healthy fitness level and ways to improve scores that may not be acceptable to the student.

Some of our students have been learning and discovering new material in their Health classes such as hygiene, puberty, the male and female reproductive anatomy, pregnancy, child birth, and nutrition. Our Health education program builds students’ knowledge, skills and positive attitudes about their own health, the health of others, and healthy—or unhealthy—practices in our world. Armed with knowledge and coupled with our emphasis on decision-making, our Health program helps our youngsters improve their health, prevent disease, and reduce risky behaviors.