From my perspective as an exercise physiologist…

A comprehensive fitness program and a physically active lifestyle in general, combined with a healthy diet, are essential in achieving and maintaining strength and balance. However, confidently navigating the chaos of life is equally important to achieving success, both in school and in life.

Regardless of our areas of expertise or background, as role models and mentors, it is our responsibility to guide our students. As such, we must have the ability to get to know them as individuals and as a group, recognize when and if there are problems, and when and how to intervene. We must seek partnerships with community professionals and organizations and build intervention teams.

	Educate students using information supported by science, and provide them with skills and tools to successfully navigate healthy lifestyle choices.
	Help to instill confidence in students through validating their opinions, helping them realize their value, and facilitate awareness of their potential and possibilities for the future.
	Foster students’ independence by providing them with multiple opportunities to learn, and to promote the expression of individual and diverse interpretations.
	Demand students’ continuous analyses and practice of skills, as well as real-life application.
	Continually create opportunities for development of unique teaching and learning methods.

For optimal health and balance, it is critical to make students aware of the importance of being mindful of their choices. There is little else one truly can control. The people with whom one spends time, the places one goes, and the activities in which one participates must be those that nurture and enhance growth. If they do not, perhaps it is time to reevaluate one’s perspective, one’s schedule, one’s SELF.

Marla Richmond, M.S
Health & Fitness Section Editor

The Great County Fitness Challenge

Author Len Saunders poses this question: “What would happen if you challenged your students to take the physical fitness test of another country?” In his book, The Project ACES Handbook, Len introduces the concept of “The Great Country Fitness Challenge.” Promoted by the late George Allen, former Physical Fitness and Sports (PCPFS) Chairman of the President’s Council, this program challenges students to see how well they perform taking a fitness test from another country. The challenge also teaches students about different cultures.

The Project ACES Handbook provides details about how to set up “The Great Country Fitness Challenge” in your area. The author lists suggestions on how to find a fitness test of another county, such as contacting that country’s government for information. He also includes samples of a press release, certificate of merit, and an event checklist.

Use fresh ideas like this one to keep your students motivated about fitness. Here are some other tips if you choose to do this project.

	To find tests from other countries, use the internet to contact the government or embassy of a country to direct you to a referral. The internet can also help get you names and other contact information.
	Also colleges and universities are plentiful throughout the world. Many of thee schools have PE departments. Perhaps e-mail the department.
	Don’t forget health clubs that may have international affiliates, such as the YMCA which is an international organization.

The Partying, Purging and Pressure to Be Perfect - By Marla Richmond, M.S.

	Is an adolescent equipped to responsibly navigate the difficult transitions and experiences he or she faces leaving junior high school and childhood, and dealing with the academic, social, and emotional challenges of high school and college? If not, why?
	As educators, how might we become more sensitive to and better equipped, to recognize our students’ needs and issues? As individuals? As a group?
	Once we recognize what the needs and issues are, how might we more effectively intervene? What are we doing now? Is it working? If not, what must we do?

This thought-provoking section is intended to:

	Provide you with information, facts, statistics and student perspectives about such maladaptive coping behaviors as excessive alcohol consumption and disordered eating
	Present highly effective and innovative lessons and materials created by this section editor
	Inspire you with fresh ideas and possibilities in helping your students gain control through confidence and becoming their authentic selves

According to Melanie, age 20, currently a sophomore attending Northwestern University: “Most adolescents share a delusion known as a personal fable, allowing them to believe they are infallible. It is this fantasy that makes outrageous behaviors seem perfectly acceptable and reasonable activities.”

Dr. Stephen Galston, Director of Evanston Northwestern/Highland Park Hospital Eating Disorder Unit concurs, stating that adolescence presents challenges to our students they are rarely prepared for. “The time during which there is a high risk for eating disorders, excessive drinking, and other maladaptive coping behaviors is during transitions such as in adolescence, when pressures are high and capabilities of coping have not yet developed.” Similar circumstances occur in the transition to college. “Eating disorders and excessive drinking are not about food or drink, but more about feeling out of control,” adds Galston.

Help your students eat and drink what they really need. Help them take control of their hunger by adding protein and maintain fluid balance through eating health carbs. Learn more about protein and foods that fill. Read Merle Levy, LDN’s Power at the Plate available at amazon.com. ( p. 7 of handout, convert your snacks…,Fuel fun, p. 16-17, Feb. FitBite, pp. 13-15

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Facts about eating and drinking

	40% of 16-24 year olds participate in hazardous drinking behavior, resulting in injuries, loss of memory, or inability to do what is expected of them.
	Females become intoxicated with less alcohol than males because of a smaller body “fluid compartment” and a lesser ability to break down ethanol in the liver.
	15-17% of college female population have an eating disorder.
	1 in 4 are at risk, or have an eating disorder that doesn’t meet common criteria.
	1/2 to 2/3 of adolescent female population are dieting at any given time.
	A majority of them are not receiving the proper education and guidance.
	Anorexia Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders, Inc. “Dieting and the resulting hunger are the two most powerful triggers known to causing eating disorders.”

Learn how all of the cells in the body use the nutrients we eat and convert them to ATP, our usable form of energy. (Normal metabolic processes, handout p. 3).

Learn how alcohol interferes with normal metabolic processes. ( p. 4, the Metabolic Cost of a Night of Partying).

Discover how we maintain a strong metabolism and healthy body composition. ( NU Fitbite, Metabolism: The Calories we Spend, handout: The Physiology of Fullness, p. 6).

Eating Disorders Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS) Is this a way of life for anyone you know?

	Normal weight for height
	Works out with the sole purpose of compensating for eating
	Eats rigidly and methodically; will not deviate without anxiety and guilt
	Obsessively preoccupied with her body
	Points out every pinch of fat; says she’s bloated
	Weighs herself several times daily
	Compares herself to media models and feels unacceptably larger
	Asks others daily “Do I look fat?”

Competing with Air-brushed Illusions

Some research suggests that our culture’s obsession with Hollywood idols, media models, and unrelenting advertising of beauty and fitness products are responsible for this growing phenomenon. As other cultures become more westernized, percentages of individuals suffering from eating disorders increase.

Others might say that advertisers have a right to sell products and present them in the most appealing light. As educators and parents, it is our responsibility to help kids understand what they are really looking at on the covers or inside magazines. Cover models differ very little from the manikins donning clothing or jewelry in a department store. Airbrushing or digital image editing erases anything that makes them realistically human. Yet the females in this country continue to compete and as a result fall short of the illusions. Is it really about seeking to look or be perfect? Or is it something way more?

Perhaps disordered lifestyles are more about your students attempts at surviving the overwhelming pressure of an adolescent world; a need for emotional nourishment, confidence - something very much in demand and in short supply in the world of an adolescent.

You can’t control the weather, the passage of time or other people, but you can control the choices you make.” Healthy choices lead to confidence and better coping.

Starving to Party: Interesting facts to swallow:

College-age women fight a battle between two conflicting social norms: drinking, & conforming to socially-approved body shape and size.

Their reality…students participate in activities that are deemed to be both desirable and acceptable.

“I just don’t eat much during the day when I know that I am going out.” M., Cornell University.

“Everyone drinks - from the ivy league schools to the “known” party schools. In high school, all of the older kids told us about the bars and drinking, and how great it is…and also, there is nothing else to do late at night….some people think it’s fun to black out or throw up.” B., University of Illinois, Champaign

“At Madison, drinking was just something that was expected of you. It’s difficult to be with people who are drunk when you aren’t. When you are sober and everyone around you is drunk, wild and loud, you get annoyed very easily. I would just get one drink and sip it slowly all night…that way nobody bothered me. I wish there was another alternative or more people who didn’t want to drink.” J., University of Wisconsin, Madison

One study revealed skipping meals is a particularly attractive option for two reasons:

“In my sorority, some girls use throwing up from drinking as an excuse to be bulimic.” B. University of Illinois

Other ways to avoid partying calories:

	Drinking low-carb or diet mixers
	Drinking light beer or no beer
	Starving or eating very little that day (i.e. only lettuce, salsa, egg whites)
	Using diuretics, laxatives

“There are a lot of girls who feel this way. It’s so hard to be with everyone when they are doing shots and eating bags of cheetos, and I am thinking about drinking diet coke and not letting people see that I am not drinking.” K. Northwestern University

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What Do Drugs Do to the Body? Students create posters showing the effects of different dangerous drugs on the body. (Grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12)

Drug Abuse Brochure (grades 7-12)
Students will be given a list of Drug Information Web sites and a blank "Drug Abuse Crossword." They are to complete the crossword by finding the answers within the various websites. The information they glean from the Web search will be used to plan an informational brochure to be distributed to all students in school.

In one study, when asked why they don’t simply drink less, girls responded that it didn’t make sense to drink in moderation. Most of the them drank more than 4 drinks in a row with their sole intention being “to become intoxicated.”

The “Cost” of a Night of Partying

Try adding a segment like this to your alcohol education course.

	Fat will not be oxidized and used for fuel after consumption of alcohol
	Brain’s receipt of satiety signals are slowed (more hunger)
	People tend to eat faster and more food (more calories)
	The presence of ethanol increases insulin production (guarantees more fat deposited and less released)
	The metabolic effects of alcohol occur as soon as it enters the blood; ethanol goes right through stomach wall

How (drunk) girls look to guys

“Guys don’t like to play the role of babysitter to drunk girls…they get overly emotional and ruin other people’s nights….puking is not attractive at all.” M., age 20, USC

The Fat and Cally Tally After a Long Weekend of Partying

According to the American Dietetic and Diabetes Association Exchange System Food Guide, For every 45 calories of alcohol, one fat exchange or 5 grams of fat is NOT USED. Since belly fat is the first used in the body, guess where the fat is going to wind up? The information below may also penetrate the personal fable, but proceed with caution with young women:

	Gin, rum, scotch, vodka, whiskey (1 oz.) - 2-3 fat exchanges, 96-120 calories
	Dry wine (4 oz.) - 2 fat exchanges, 70 kcals
	Low-calorie beer (12 oz) - 2 fat exchanges; one-half fruit exchange 90 kcals
	Beer 4.5% alcohol (12 oz.) - one bread, 2 fats, 160 kcals
	Manhattan (3.5 oz) - ½ bread, 3 fats, 170 kcals
	Martini (3.5 oz) - 3 fats 135 cals
	Old fashioned - ½ bread 3 ½ fats 190 kcals
	Sherry (3 oz.) - ½ bread, 2 fats 125 kcals

Having interviewed a group of girls in a sorority at University of Illinois, it was discovered that there were stages of drinking. We made a cally tally of a night of partying. This is what was discovered:

	Stage One: Pre-gaming or Pre-drinking about 3-4 shots of hard liquor
	Stage Two: Drinking at the bars about 3 shots, 3 beers
	Stage Three: After Hours at the Frats about 2 more beers

Total night of drinking about 7 shots and 5 beers

	21 fat exchanges from shots
	10 fat exchanges from beer
	31 fat exchanges in one night of drinking
	X 5 grams = About 155 grams of fat

Two to three nights of partying can result in storing about a pound of pure fat in the belly!

A powerful alternative and reinforcer to replace “being thin”

“One more thing...you said you could teach us how to get confident and “cut up.” I want to be fit and healthy to be strong...you said we could just soar when we feel strong. Things keep coming up lately, and I haven’t gotten to the gym as often as I’d like. However, if you have advice to improve my workout, that'd be great. Thanks again! Sorority Girl #1

HOMEWORK:

	Learn how the body works moving, eating, or while reading The Physiology Storybook: An Owner's Manual for the Human Body, 2nd edition by Marla Richmond, M.S. Just released February 2006 and now available through: NASPE ( 1-800-213-7193 ) Palos Sports ( 1-877-800-9573) directly from the author at (1-847-291-1662) World-renowned as one of the most innovative teaching tools of its kind in exercise and nutrition science, The Physiology Storybook, 2nd edition is being used this year by Northwestern University first year med students, physical and health educators, fitness/wellness professionals, and students of all ages from high school through graduate school. (backcover) (frontcover) (biography)
	Review the handout, The Metabolic Cost of a Night of Partying (p. 3, 4)
	Read and explore the illustration and poem about the effects of alcohol on hunger and fat-burning. (p.9)
	Learn about Oxygen, the key to maintaining a healthy body composition and staying fit for life.
	Review the handout "The Truth About Using Fuel (Calories) and Staying Full."
	Log onto www.amazon.com and order every book written by Wayne L.Westcott, PhD. He will share the important principles, practices and prescriptions for every type of strength training for every individual of any age.
	Too busy to train? Log onto Palossports for affordable fitness products you can take any place and work out any time.
	To find organizations that can help you learn more about eating disorders log onto DMOZ: Open Directory Project

The Drug Dope Show (grades 9-12)
Students work in teams using a "talk show" format to research drug types, the addiction/recovery processes, and effects of drug abuse on society, family, friends, work, school, etc. They will also explore techniques for resisting peer pressure.

Substance Abuse Influences (grades 4-6)
This particular activity shows that substance abuse education is more effective if it focuses on processes of decision making rather than problems.

Substance Use, or Abuse? Exploring Medicinal Benefits of Controlled Substances (grades: 6-8, 9-12). In this lesson, students identify the medicinal benefits, and ill effects, of a variety of controlled substances. They then determine whether or not they think hallucinogens should be researched for possible medicinal purposes.