BISD makes anti-obesity push with CATCH program

While many young schoolchildren dislike Mondays — getting back to the grind of reading, arithmetic and other subjects — fifth-grader Ellis Chonka is different.

The Ortiz Elementary student looks forward to the first school day of the week because of its Mile Club Monday. During gym, he and all the other children in his class get awarded based on how far they run.

“We have a card, and for every 20 feet we run, we get a hole punched in it,” he said. “When we fill up the card, we get five dollars in CATCH bucks.”

Chonka said he has earned around $30 in CATCH — Coordinated Approach to Child Health — bucks throughout the year and is hoping to buy a water bottle at the end of year.

Numerous studies from both governmental and educational organi-zations have noted an alarming rise in childhood obesity nationwide. This has warranted a need to revamp physical and nutritional educa-tion among schools.

Brownsville Independent School District has attempted answered the call through the CATCH program.

The CATCH program traces back to the late 1980s as a research project between four different universities across the country. The University of California at San Diego, University of Minnesota, Tulane University and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston researched ways to develop a program geared towards elementary students to educate them about the risk factors of cardio-vascular disease.

“The CATCH program is about making choices for healthy eating,” said Liz Avitia, who heads the BISD’s CATCH program.

The program began at BISD in August 2003 when the district re-ceived a grant from the University of Texas Health and Science cen-ter to create a pilot program in five elementary schools. Russell, Hudson, Garza, Ortiz and Sharp Elementary were the first schools in Brownsville to test the program.

Avitia called it an “across the board success” among the pilot schools, so BISD decided to launch the program in every school in the district.

“We decided to implement it because it is now a law. The Texas Education Agency sent out an announcement stating that we needed to implement it by 2007,” Avitia said.

The Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 19 in May 2001 mandating that all public schools must provide a coordinated school health and physical activity program geared toward reducing the risk of obesity, cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes by September 2007.

The CATCH program is recognized by the Texas State Board of Education as elementary school diabetes curriculum.

Avitia said the goal of the CATCH program is to see children mak-ing better choices in the cafeteria lunch line through weekly health education and to become actively engaged in physical activity.

“We want moderate to vigorous activity and the kids more actively involved in physical education so they don’t sit and wait for their turn,” Avitia said.

Avitia said they wanted to see a collaboration between the cafeteria, gym, and classroom in order to keep the children mindful of their choices.

In the classroom, children are taught recipes for healthy eating and ways to eliminate unhealthy foods. They are encouraged to take their education home and incorporate it into their family meal.

Ellis Chonka believes that the CATCH program is effective because it has taught him how to make better choices picking food.

“You don’t eat junk food,” he said. “I try to eat the healthy food so I can have more energy.”

Avitia has noticed a change in students’ eating habits.

“I’ve seen that the kids are now paying attention to what they are selecting,” Avitia said.

The CATCH curriculum also informs the children about diabetes prevention and the ills of tobacco use.

Now each school in BISD will have a CATCH team to oversee the program and create awareness on each campus.

“The CATCH team is composed of a cafeteria manager, nurse, counselor, teacher, P.E. teacher, parent liaison, a parent, and a safety coordinator,”Avitia said.

A representative from the CATCH team is selected as the CATCH “champion,” which Avitia says is the “connector between the district and campus CATCH team.”

The teams were taught about the program before the 2006-07 school year began and were trained on state laws, materials the program incorporates.

McAllen and Harlingen are the only other school districts in the Rio Grande Valley executing the CATCH program.