Published: November 04, 2009 11:18 pm      

St. Francis students helping with fitness effort in Portage schools

PORTAGE — A push for improved physical fitness among students in Portage Area High School has prompted a partnership with St. Francis University and its exercise physiology program.

About a half dozen St. Francis seniors and two instructors are encouraging Portage students to exercise and realize the long-term impact that will have on their overall quality of life.

“We hope to make it conceptual, that this will have lifelong benefits,” high school nurse Lisa Dividock said.

Named “Project Horsepower,” in keeping with the school’s Mustang mascot, the program gets kids thinking about pulse rates, body mass index, the significance of high and low blood pressure and a multitude of other health-related issues.

Dividock, health teacher Martin Slanoc and other district professionals are working with eighth-grade students to help them think more about fitness and physical well-being as the school begins work on a wellness center that will allow for a much greater emphasis on lifetime health.

While the district boasts a higher-than-average rate of student participation in extracurricular activities, it also has an obesity rate of about 35 percent, a number that is higher than the state average, Dividock said.

The St. Francis seniors, who hope to work in the fields of physical therapy and exercise physiology, talk to the students in basic terms about how the heart works and what exercise does to the blood pressure.

“Portage came to St. Francis and asked for our help,” said Jenny LeMoine, an assistant professor in the university’s physical therapy department.

The heart and blood pressure rates of volunteer eighth-graders are measured. They then do push-ups and jumping jacks and the rates are taken again.

At the other end of the high school, St. Francis students help students measure and understand body mass index and the role of weight in overall fitness.

Exercise physiology is a career path that has been around for only the past 10 to 15 years, LeMoine said.

It studies acute and chronic responses resulting from physical therapy, with the gained knowledge applied to help with performance and lifelong health. Professional athletes have used the approach for a number of years.

High school Principal Ralph Cecere said the partnership with St. Francis is important because it is one way of preparing students mentally before the wellness center opens and the real physical work begins.

“We thought it was time to try to push our students in a positive direction as far as physical well-being,” Cecere said. “I’m very proud of the way our health and physical education departments have embraced this.”

Work began this week on construction of a $500,000 wellness and fitness center at the rear of the high school. District officials promise it will be in use every day as part of the health and fitness curriculum.