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PSS: Nearly half of TES students are unhealthy
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Posted on Oct 25 2006
Forty-nine percent of the student population of Tanapag Elementary School is either underweight or overweight, according to a recent report from the Public School System.
TES principal Frances Ulloa said a recent PSS project measured the students’ Body Mass Index where it was found that only 51 percent of the students fell within the healthy category. The rest were either in the underweight or overweight categories.
Ulloa said that, of the 236 TES students, 229 were measured to get their respective BMIs. PSS conducted the survey in August this year, with a follow-up in September. There’s not much difference between the two figures. “And that concerns us,” Ulloa added.
The Commonwealth Diabetes Coalition, in collaboration with Diabetes Prevention and Control, launched its pilot project called “Diabetes and You” Program yesterday. Speaker Irene and Carl Takeshita, together with the Northern Marianas College program officers, visited schools.
The team held a one-hour presentation and training for some 26 TES students and faculty members.
Ulloa said she was glad to have the training and have the facilitators transfer knowledge and techniques to her faculty on how to effectively transmit information about diabetes to schoolchildren.
“Diabetes and You” is a curriculum that is now being taught to 4th and 5th grade students in Hawaii to help address the prevention and control of Type 2 diabetes through nutrition and physical activity.
The curriculum aims to:
* understand what diabetes is and its symptoms, risk factors and complications associated with this disease;
* lead students through a process that enables them to distinguish between those factors they can and cannot control; and,
* get commitment of the students to prevent and delay the onset or minimize the effects of Type 2 diabetes by changing their lifestyle and eating habits.
The team will be visiting Mt. Carmel School and Saipan International School today.
