Good Habits and Bone Density: UCI Looks at PE Class

Researchers at UC Irvine are teaming up with a South County high school for a study that may one day transform traditional physical education classes into holistic health programs aimed at putting teens on a path to a lifetime of exercise.

This summer, about 20 girls from El Toro High School in Lake Forest are expected to enroll in a specialized physical education class with extras rarely offered in high school, such as personalized exercise training, dancing and lectures on nutrition.

The goal is to uncover ways of motivating inactive adolescent girls to exercise and to monitor their bone density, said Dan M. Cooper, professor of pediatrics at UCI’s College of Medicine.

If these girls can build up bone density during the formative adolescent years, they may be able to guard against debilitating osteoporosis as they age, Cooper said. All it takes, he said, is for the girls to keep active throughout their lives.

“We know that exercise is good for adolescent girls, but they don’t do it,” he said. “We thought, ‘Can we put together a program that stimulates them to exercise?’ ”

Unlike traditional physical education classes that stress sit-ups and running, the specialized program will avoid those exercises so often despised by teenage girls, Cooper said.

Instead, the teens will play team sports known to increase bone density, like volleyball and basketball, and learn individual physical activities, including dancing.

The girls will hear lectures on nutrition, the importance of calcium supplements and the link between exercise and academic performance. At times, the teens will have nearly one-on-one training sessions with exercise experts, which is not possible in the typically large physical education classes, said Debby Ford, study coordinator and health teacher at El Toro.

These activities are meant to be fun, Ford said, so that “while [the students are] getting the benefit of exercise, they’re also enjoying it.”

Over the next five years, the $1.25-million study, which is funded by the National Institutes of Health, will monitor the bone density and fitness levels of roughly 300 girls who will go through the specialized program.

Ultimately, the researchers hope to create specific guidelines for reshaping the traditional approach to physical education in high schools.

These guidelines may be as simple as hiring enthusiastic teachers to motivate teens or swapping the usual mile run for more appealing exercises, Cooper said.

“We’re not looking for some arcane program so that kids will say ‘Yeah, it made our bones grow, but we hated every minute of it,’ ” he said.

“We want them to take it not just because there’s a requirement for PE, but because they’re doing for themselves something that’s good.”

Researchers have not been recruiting girls for the study yet, but some parents and students have expressed interest in the opportunity to learn osteoporosis prevention and proper fitness.

Donna Davis saw the effects of osteoporosis firsthand when she worked as a nurse in a convalescent home. Now, she wants her 15-year-old daughter to enroll in the study so she can start strengthening bone density as a teen.

“It broke my heart to see these little old ladies in [the hospital] forever because they’d broken their hips,” she said. The study is a “good way to find out how [her daughter] is doing.”

The study also appeals to Danielle Salisbury, who said she hated the physical education class she took this year.

“I didn’t really like it. It was kind of pointless,” the El Toro ninth-grader said. “Half the time we didn’t do anything.”

Not everyone is convinced the program is on the right track.

Steve Bresnahan, physical education coach at Laguna Hills High School, lauds the desire to motivate inactive teens with alternative activities. But he believes that some exercises--namely running--should not be scrapped.

“To eliminate running . . . is not a positive way to go,” he said. “It’s the most efficient [exercise] for the energy used. I can’t imagine a better way” to get in shape.

For now, UCI is working exclusively with El Toro High School, but researchers might branch out to other school districts over the next few years.