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The Joe Decker Children's Health-Related Fitness Research Award
Joe Decker gift to support research concerning children's Health -Related Fitness
Not only do I have a personal passion for physical activity but also I believe that all children should be physically active. I embrace the quote from HealthFirst " A mind is a terrible thing to waste. So is the other 90% of a child." As an undergraduate student I assisted with the kids fitness testing project directed by Cathy McMillan. To this end I am providing a gift of $10,000.00 to be used to support research concerning children's Health-Related Fitness. For the past 15 years, Cathy McMillan has directed the Macomb Community Kids Health-Related Fitness Testing Project and has been collecting data from children in grades K-5 attending the Macomb School District. Loran Erdmann has been working with the project for the past 7 years. Thus Cathy McMillan and Loran Erdmann through the Western Illinois University Physical Education Department will direct the research.
Importance of funding research for Health Related Fitness
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:
- Childhood obesity is at epidemic levels in the United States.
- The percentage of overweight young people has more than doubled in the past three decades.
- Physical inactivity and poor nutritional habits account for at least 300,000 deaths in the United States each year.
- Obese children and adolescents are more likely to become obese adults.
The CDC along with the Surgeon General's Office has recommended regular physical activity for individuals of all ages (physical inactivity increases the risk of dying prematurely, dying of heart disease, and developing diabetes, colon cancer, and high blood pressure).
Joe Decker's gift of $10,000.00 will be used to support the health related fitness research project.
Currently McMillan and Erdmann have a database in excess of 2000 kindergarten children and are in the ongoing process of tracking those individuals in 5 and 10-year periods. Possible research lines they intend to pursue: tracking childhood obesity, cardiovascular fitness, muscular strength and flexibility, following children who present with obesity in early childhood and examining relationships between health related fitness and cardiovascular disease risk factors.
