Bishop Garriga students accept healthy challenge

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - On Feb. 8, more than half the students and the entire staff at Bishop Garriga Middle Preparatory School committed themselves to a program of exercise of mind and body. The staff and students took on the moniker “3H Club” and adopted the motto “healthy, holy and happy.”

The program is part of a $15,000 “Healthy Campus” grant awarded to the school under the H-E-B Excellence in Education Awards to help the school fight its students’ risk to diabetes.

The “Texas Risk Assessment for Type 2 Diabetes in Children” screening done at the school showed that there were a large number of children who had an acanthosis marker, which is indicative of pre-diabetes, and an even a larger number of children who were overweight and obese.

According to the National Institute of Health, 17 percent of all children and adolescents in the United States are overweight and obese, which is triple the rate from just one generation ago. Students have access to sugar drinks and less healthy foods at school throughout the day from vending machines, school canteens, at fundraising events, school parties and sporting events.

“I became concerned and brought this to the attention of the school principal. We both agreed that something needed to be done,” said Teresa Martínez, School Health Administrator for the Diocese of Corpus Christi.

The grant will pay for breakfast for the students, consisting of boiled eggs, fruits and other healthy foods. The school will begin serving milk at lunch and an anonymous donor offered to give the school a refrigerator to store the milk.

Water bottles and t-shirts with the club logo will be given to all participants.

Teachers and staff will break up in sets of two and each set will meet regularly with a different set of sixth, seventh and eighth grade girls or boys.

Martinez will meet once a week with all the classes. She plans to bring speakers and experts on different subjects relating to health to speak with participants.

More than 130 students weighed in on Feb. 8 and the challenge has begun. Their progress can be followed at www.activelifehq.org/here-we-come.

(Editors Note: This will be the first of periodic articles following the success of the “3H club.”)