Modern society presents many obstacles to encouraging a healthy lifestyle for children, a situation the Irish Heart Foundation is seeking to address with its Action for Life programme.
This was illustrated by recent research which found that just one in four nine-year-olds achieves the recommended minimum of one hour of vigorous physical activity every day.
Some have attributed blame to the primary school curriculum after a study conducted by EU body Eurydice put Ireland bottom of the pile for the amount of time dedicated to the subject: 37 hours a year in Irish schools compared with 108 hours for French children.
Notwithstanding calls for extra hours to be provided, the Action for Life programme aims to work with the time that is currently available to help teachers and students get the most out of physical education classes.
“It’s a health-related physical activity resource for primary schools. It’s designed to support teachers with the rollout of their PE curriculum. It’s practical and easy to use, and it assists teachers in planning and teaching part of the curriculum,” says Action for Life co-ordinator Ellen McMeel.
“Key risk factors for heart disease and stroke, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and overweight, develop over the life-course and behaviours which influence these risk factors such as physical inactivity and poor diet very often originate in childhood.”
The original Action for Life programme was introduced in 1996 and offered teaching resources and training for primary school teachers.
The Irish Heart Foundation decided to instigate a renewed drive in 2013 and released an updated programme complete with books and DVDs explaining the activities and their benefits.
Games and dances
The new version was also tailored to encourage inclusion of children with lower levels of athletic ability or disabilities so that everyone could join in.
Activities can include games, dances and movement exercises. Each one aims to incorporate cardiovascular health and fitness, muscle and bone strengthening and flexibility, with adaptations for different ages and abilities from junior infants to sixth class.
“Obviously there’s cardiovascular benefits [to the programme]: it makes your heart muscles stronger and allows the heart to pump more blood at a slower pace,” says McMeel, who is keen to outline the educational benefits that increased physical activity can bring.
“That’s a benefit we hear about a lot from teachers that their energy levels are increased, or possibly if they’re too active, that it settles them down. It helps them manage their weight and sleep better; it just helps them feel better is the big psychological benefit.”
Some 400 teachers have been trained in how to use the resource since volume two was launched. The foundation also continues to run education programmes for teachers, including a forthcoming event in Navan as part of The Irish Times / Pfizer Healthy Town 2016.
Training
Ruth Dunne
from St Oliver Plunkett’s National School in the town is a veteran of the programme, having first received the Irish Heart Foundation training in 1999.
In her capacity as health promotion officer for the school, she has seen it implement similar initiatives such as the Department of Education’s Health Promoting Schools and Active Flag. Dunne is in no doubt as to the benefits that have arisen from Action for Life.
“The pupils love it. We’re a very active school and we’ve got the Active Schools flag as well, but the school’s big kingpin would be sport. The children are used to taking part in sports,” she says.
Dunne recognises that teachers receive varying levels of training in how to take PE classes, with some courses placing less of an emphasis on the subject than others. She sees Action for Life as an equaliser.
“The problem is that we have so many things flung at us it’s very hard to address every issue . . . The teachers absolutely love the training. The lady who did it was fantastic, and the Action for Life books are wonderful,” says Dunne, who has encouraged all of her colleagues to get involved.
On-the-spot exercises
Just as the programme itself caters for children of all backgrounds and abilities, those responsible for designing it wanted to be inclusive of schools which might not have indoor exercise facilities.
This is where the Bizzy Break component comes in particularly useful, according to McMeel, along with Bizzy Break for Rainy Days.
Both of these are intended for use within a classroom setting and provide for 10 minutes of on-the-spot exercises at desks which can be done at any time in the day to perk pupils up or even tire them out, as required.
“Some schools wouldn’t have a hall where they can do activities so that’s why we developed Bizzy Break for the classroom setting. It gives them the opportunity to be active in a limited space,” says McMeel.
Apart from keeping children healthy, McMeel believes that increased physical activity has a part to play in reducing social inequalities.
“Early intervention is important for improving health and reducing inequalities, and the school setting has shown that children who are from lower socioeconomic groups participate in physical activities in schools, whether it’s PE or sport, just as much as children from higher socioeconomic groups, but outside of the school setting they don’t participate as much.”
The programme aims to help address this imbalance by encouraging exercise and participation in sporting activities in their own time and impresses the point that healthy living need not stop at the school gates.
