WKOW 27: Madison, WI Breaking News, Weather and SportsUPDATE: $540K grant to fight childhood obesity is great first step

UPDATE: $540K grant to fight childhood obesity is great first step

COTTAGE GROVE (WKOW) -- Monona Grove is one of the many school districts looking for answers to a severe budget shortfall, but despite the $1 million gap, its physical education program is doing just fine.

That's because the district received more than $540,000 dollars through a federal Physical Education for Progress (PEP) grant aimed at fighting childhood obesity over the next three years.

This is gym class like these kids have never seen before: treadmills, ellipticals, exercise bikes, and a vertical climbing wall, all brand-new.

"It shows you how many calories you burned, and how fast you're going, and your pace, so I think that's cool," said Katie Molstad, an eighth-grade student at Glacial Drumlin Middle School.

It's cool for sure, and a useful tool in fighting childhood obesity.

Last year, the Monona Grove School District found one in every four of its students was either obese or overweight, and fewer than half said they enjoyed physical education class.

Glacial Drumlin turned a spare classroom into a miniature fitness center.

"You make your own goal and if you reach it, then you record it. It makes me want to work harder to have a higher goal," said Curtis Wollin, an eighth-grade student at Glacial Drumlin.

"We're trying to keep the motivation high. We're trying to do things so these kids can find something that interests them and is fun and that they can enjoy," said Reed Foster, the grant project director and phy. ed. teacher in the district.

"With something like a climbing wall comes confidence, and with middle schoolers, confidence is always an issue that we're faced with," said Mike Whisler, associate principal at Glacial Drumlin.

All the fitness equipment in the world can't solve the obesity problem by itself, but it's a step in the right direction.

"You can't say you can eat junk food all the time, but if you exercise you're going to be healthy. You really have to have healthy nutrition at the same time as you have good exercise habits," said Dr. Alex Adams of the UW Pediatric Fitness Clinic.

"We see students that are overweight or out of shape, but our job isn't to frown upon that; our job is to find the right ways to pick that kid up and find the means to be healthy," said Foster.

Monona Grove is just one of seven school districts in Wisconsin to qualify for this federal grant. It got the money by demonstrating a need to change its students' attitudes toward fitness.

Foster says nearly $122,000 in matching grant funds came from community donations, completely separate from the school district budget.

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UPDATE (WKOW) --- The Monona Grove School District is using grant money to add fitness equipment in their school gym.  Dr. Alex Adams from the UW Pediatric Fitness Clinic says this is a great first step, but the school district should also look at healthier meal options.  Dr. Adams says childhood obesity is an epidemic and that one in five children is obese and one in three is overweight.

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COTTAGE GROVE (WKOW) -- The Monona Grove School District has received a $541,552 grant to focus on student fitness.

The grant allowed Glacial Drumlin Middle School to convert a spare classroom into a fitness center for students, equipped with seven treadmills, seven elliptical machines and six stationary bicycles. The money also went toward a cardio room at Monona Grove High School, horizontal climbing walls at the elementary schools and other equipment.

This is one example of the larger movement to fight childhood obesity, an effort spearheaded in February by First Lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" initiative.

Online reporting by Jamie Hersch
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