AP – As children exercised in unison in school yards across the world Wednesday, sweat flowed, calories burned, and, perhaps some lives will be saved.
At least, that’s the hope of Len Saunders, a grinning New Jersey elementary school gym teacher who started Project ACES in 1989. Students in all 50 states and at least 50 other countries were urged to exercise en masse for 15 minutes Wednesday, all to curb alarming rates of childhood obesity. ACES stands for All Children Exercise Simultaneously.
"Now we just have to get them to do it every day, and we’ll be fine," said Saunders, 45, who teaches at Valley View Elementary School, about 25 miles west of Manhattan. "The obesity epidemic is crazy in our country right now. This is not going to change their lives for the 15 minutes today, but it may motivate them to exercise in the future."
More than a third of American children and adolescents are overweight; 17 percent are obese, according to government figures.
"It (Project ACES) is successful in that it’s a single-shot attempt to springboard kids into exercising," said Debi Pillarella, a spokeswoman for the American Council on Exercise. "Childhood obesity is an epidemic and getting worse."
In the parking lot of the Valley View school, about 500 students clad in shorts, tank tops, and sports jerseys spread towels underneath them as they did push-ups.
Sarah Appelblatt, 11, did jumping jacks and twists.
"This keeps you fit and healthy," she said. "A lot of the kids have caught on."
Classmate Nicholas Elias, 11, said he exercises every day, playing baseball and basketball or soccer. "This is a good part of a healthy life," he said.
Elsewhere in the country, about 500,000 students participated in Michigan, 200,000 in Illinois, and 180,000 in Indiana, Saunders said.
Most of the schools held their events at 10 a.m. EST to synchronize the activity as much as possible.
Aside from regular exercise, experts say a nutritional diet is just as important to curb child obesity — and they got some major help on Wednesday.
The nation’s largest soda distributors agreed to stop almost all sales of the sugary, fizzy drinks to public schools, so students can’t buy them from vending machines.
The agreement should reach about 87 percent of U.S. schools. Industry giants Cadbury Schweppes PLC, Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. have agreed to the change.
"Soda is just a ready, available source of empty calories that has fattened up our kids," said Cedric Bryant, chief science officer for the exercise council. "And compounding that is that kids are so much less active these days than they have been."
