Playing to Lose

Recess Rules in McMinnville, TN

Story by David Snyder - November 4, 2009

It’s not a surprise that the clear autumn air around an elementary school would be filled with the sound of children at play. But for the young students of Hickory Creek Elementary, recess is even more fun now, thanks in part to a unique partnership between the CDC Foundation, Cargill, the American School Health Association (ASHA), and CDC's Division of Adolescent and School Health. With childhood obesity rates on the rise in Warren County, Tennessee, home to Hickory Creek, playtime now is serious business.

“It was time for us to have something new,” said Cheryl Kelley, coordinator of Coordinated School Health for Warren County. “We can’t control what happens at home, but we can make this as healthy a place as possible.”

For the parents, teachers and staff at Hickory Creek Elementary, the first step in that process was applying for a school health mini-grant. Provided through the CDC Foundation, with the support of Cargill and the American School Health Association, 47 schools were awarded grants to build walking trails, purchase sports and recreation equipment, increase healthy food choices in lunchrooms and classrooms, and educate students and faculty about healthy eating. The mini-grant program encouraged schools to use CDC's School Health Index: A Self-Assessment and Planning Guide, a user-friendly, science-based, self-assessment tool to help schools assess and improve their health and safety policies and programs in the context of a coordinated school health program. It focuses on several topics, including physical activity, healthy eating, tobacco use prevention, asthma and unintentional injury and violence prevention. To be eligible for the mini-grant program, school administrators and staff, community members, parents and students of each school worked together to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the school's health and safety policies and programs, and then developed a step-by-step action plan for improvement.

For Kelley, a registered nurse who monitors various health indexes among Warren County school students, the opportunity provided by the CDC Foundation was both timely and relevant to the needs they faced. According to Kelley, 40% of the county’s students are obese or at risk of obesity.

“We determined there was a need for playground equipment at the school,” Kelley said. “This opportunity came along so we made it a priority.”

Each day, the school’s first grade students get about 30 minutes of recess time on the school’s rural 15-acre campus. Higher grades are allowed 40 minutes of recess each day, much of it spent on the new equipment, which was installed in 2005 and selected by school staff for its ability to exercise various parts of the body during routine play. In addition, all students at the school take part in two weekly physical education classes, placing the school well above the minimum state requirement of 90 minutes or mandatory physical activity per week for Tennessee school students.

Aside from the obvious benefits to their physical health, says Don Prater, Principal of Hickory Creek, there are other positive effects as well.

“What I see out of them is that they are more able to concentrate after they’ve had some physical activity,” Prater said. “That’s what I see and that’s what the teachers tell me.”

By making physical activity part of their student’s daily schedule, Hickory Creek is making strides in combating childhood obesity, one recess at a time.  And while Hickory Creek’s adults see the science behind the initiative, the children needed little convincing to climb aboard the equipment that has since become part of their daily routines.

“They loved it,” Prater said. “We couldn’t keep them off of it.”

More stories, photos and videos about this program: infocus.cdcfoundation.org.