Here's a shout out to get Missoula's youngest citizens up and moving: Only 2 percent of the city's high school students meet national fitness guidelines and only 11 percent meet national health guidelines for physical activity.
The data come from recently released results of a groundbreaking research project and collaboration between the University of Montana and the Missoula City-County Health Department.
Why the worry? Because physical inactivity breeds a host of health problems - emotional and physical - and is directly related to absenteeism and poor academic performance, Gaskill said.
The data for Missoula's teenagers are also worrisome because they say 98 percent are on track to echo the national trend toward physical inactivity among American adults, a statistic closely tied to the growing obesity problem, he said.
Not one to mince words, Gaskill said bluntly: “We have a problem.”
The idea for the study came two years ago when Missoula schools were told by federal agencies to come up with a wellness program or lose funding for the federal lunch program that allows schools to offer free and reduced-priced meals to students who come from low-income households.
A task force was quickly assembled and the result was the 2007 physical activity monitoring project.
“We decided to take the bull by the horns because we didn't have a clue what youth in Missoula do,” Gaskill said.
Rounding up a team of volunteers, many of whom are UM faculty, students and graduate students in the Health and Human Performance Department, the researchers got busy.
For five days, 533 Missoula County students, representing grades two through 12, were monitored every minute of every day for physical activity, according to national guidelines.
Physical activity is generally reported as daily minutes of moderate to vigorous activity, such as a brisk walk, accumulated in 10-minute bouts, Gaskill explained.
“What we were trying to do was to see if Missoula students were meeting the guidelines for health set by the Centers for Disease Control,” he said. “National guidelines are 60 minutes of moderate activity, at least 10 minutes at a time, five days out of seven.”
In the end, the study found Missoula's youngest students are doing pretty well and are fairly active, but high school students are a significant cause for concern.
The project discovered 78 percent of Missoula's elementary school students meet national health guidelines and 27 percent meet national fitness guidelines (children who get the equivalent of 20 minutes of jogging three times a week). In middle school, 54 percent of the students meet health guidelines and 12 percent meet fitness guidelines.
The research also concluded that the grade-point average was lowest for students with the lowest physical activity, and absenteeism was highest in students with the lowest physical activity.
“After surveying the attitudes and beliefs of the students, 98 percent said they believe they are active,” said Kelly Rice, a city-county health specialist. “Clearly, there's a huge disconnect, and to me, that's a good place to start to change things.”
When asked what was the biggest barrier to physical activity, 60 percent of the students' parents blamed television and video games.
How to get Missoula youth up and moving will take a community effort - and a conscious effort to make a lot of little changes, said Greg Oliver, director of health promotion for the City-County Health Department.
“We think one of the solutions is to get a lot of people doing little things here and there,” he said. “If we think about physical activity in different ways than merely ‘exercise,' then I think becoming more physically active is achievable.”
Taking a family walk after dinner, turning off the television and throwing a Frisbee, planting a garden, riding bicycles more often, are just some suggestions Oliver offered.
“Exercise is the cheapest medicine one can have and attacks the most number of diseases,” Gaskill said. “It's the one medicine that actually makes us feel better when we take it, and it's free.”
Although the research turned up some disconcerting data, the good news, Oliver said, is Missoula now knows how to change the health status of its youngest residents.
“Very few communities know their statistics about physical activity,” he said. “This was a very sophisticated study and it is very specific.”
Once a community's problems are identified, he said, then the hunt for solutions can begin.“If we can't make Missoula active,” Gaskill said, “America is done.”
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