KAPA‘A — About a hundred students signed up, and an additional 40-50 students from Kapa‘a Elementary School participated in a supervised walk, Wednesday. Bev Brody, the Get Fit Kaua‘i Island Coordinator, said the students walking at the Kapa‘a Elementary School
KAPA‘A — About a hundred students signed up, and an additional 40-50 students from Kapa‘a Elementary School participated in a supervised walk, Wednesday.
Bev Brody, the Get Fit Kaua‘i Island Coordinator, said the students walking at the Kapa‘a Elementary School come from areas outside the Walking School Bus route, which started from the Cannery on Kawaihau Road and made its way to the campus.
The Walking School Bus coincided with Feb. 9 being designated a Walk to School Day, and Brody said she felt there were schools around the state participating in activities highlighting the benefits of walking to school.
“Studies have repeatedly demonstrated the positive effects that daily physical activity has on improving self-esteem and academic achievement,” Brody said in an e-mail. “With reports of obesity among Americans on the rise, it is crucial that we help our children establish healthy habits that will last a lifetime.”
Kaua‘i Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr., Kaua‘i County Council members JoAnn Yukimura and Derek Kawakami joined the Walking School Bus, Kawakami joining with his daughter as the bus neared its destination.
“Since the Walking School Bus program started, my daughter discovered she likes walking,” Kawakami said. “Now, weather permitting, we walk to school about three times a week.”
Get Fit Kaua‘i, the Nutritition and Physical Activity Coalition of Kaua‘i County’s School Task Force headed up the organization for the Walking School Bus, funded in part by the Dept. of Health’s Healthy Hawai‘i Initiative through a contract with the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa’s Office of Public Health Studies, and Dept. of Health and Human Services and Communities Putting Prevention to Work.
“Aside from reduced carbon dioxide, less traffic time and teaching children self-reliance, the most important benefit of Walk to School programs are the health benefits,” Brody said. “It has been proved over and over again that children who engage in regular physical activity perform better academically.”
Get Fit Kaua‘i believes that the Walking School Bus on Walk to School Day addresses statewide concerns about the health of the island’s children and climate change issues.
Some of these include obesity and inactivity, identified as one of the nation’s major public health challenges and one of the principal drivers in healthcare spending.
Two-thirds of American children do not get the 30-60 minutes of daily physical activity required for healthy development and less than 20 percent of Kaua‘i’s children walk to school.
Passenger transportation accounts for 45 percent of greenhouse gas emissions produced by the average American family, and by reducing the number of short car trips, families can take personal action to slow climate change, states a release from Get Fit Kaua‘i.
