Walking through the pyramid

Michael Miller

Before she ever started the Steps to Healthy Living program at

Killybrooke Elementary, Marcie Mathieu had already learned a valuable

lesson about the perils of junk food.

Her source? The film “Super Size Me.”

In the Oscar-nominated documentary from last year, filmmaker

Morgan Spurlock forces himself to eat nothing but McDonald’s for an

entire month -- and to accept a super-size portion whenever the clerk

offers it. During the course of the film, Spurlock gains 25 pounds,

feels nauseous and dizzy and at one point ends another

burger-and-fries meal by vomiting out of his car window.

“When they showed his throw up, I never wanted to eat at McDonalds

again,” said Mathieu, a fourth-grader in Lisa Edwards’ class. “Every

time I eat junk food like McDonalds, I feel sick to my stomach, but

when I eat something like a salad, I feel good.”

Over the last week at Killybrooke, Mathieu and her classmates have

learned other -- perhaps less graphic -- lessons about the importance

of a healthy lifestyle. Every morning in class, they have filled out

a healthy-eating calendar that keeps track of their fruit and

vegetable servings for the previous day. In the afternoon, they take

walks around the school playground with pedometers to count their

steps. The goal, set by Edwards, is 10,000 steps a day. Some have

already passed the 11,000 mark.

Killybrooke is one of four Newport-Mesa elementary schools --

along with Davis, Victoria and Wilson -- participating this year in

Steps to Healthy Living, a California Nutrition Network-funded

program that offers health education to fourth-, fifth- and

sixth-graders at low-income schools. The campaign, currently in its

second year, aims to curb the trend of obesity among America’s youth.

“It definitely starts a habit at a young age, and that’s hopefully

something they’ll carry into their adolescence,” said Sharon Moore, a

California Nutrition Network grant-project nutritionist who works

with Newport-Mesa schools. “Fifteen percent of children in the nation

are either overweight or obese, and so, if we can instill healthy

eating habits and promote physical activity, it hopefully promotes

healthy habits as they grow older.”

The Community Action Partnership of Orange County, a nonprofit

group, provides the lessons for the program, which include drawing

food group pyramids and planning three meals a day. A number of local

corporations co-sponsor the program and provide equipment -- Kaiser

Permanente donated the pedometers. Edwards said that her students

quickly warmed up to the walking program, after some hesitancy at

first.

“The first day we did it this year, the kids were saying, ‘Do we

have to walk?’,” Edwards recalled. “Now they love doing it. Last

year, when we finished the two weeks, the kids wanted to keep going,

so we did the walk for the rest of the year.”

She noted that her students had taken to the program in other ways

as well.

“I had a little girl tell me this morning that her mom changed

their dinner plans,” Edwards said. “She had asked for more vegetables

and less fats.”

* IN THE CLASSROOM is a weekly feature in which Daily Pilot

education writer Michael Miller visits a campus in the Newport-Mesa

area and writes about his experience.