Big Park Community School was one of 10 Arizona schools to receive a $1,000 grant from McDonald’s last month.
The McDonald’s/AZ PTA Go Active! Academic Award, which is given for innovative programs promoting physical fitness, selected Big Park, thanks to physical education teacher Kortney Zesiger.
Zesiger is responsible for starting the “Doing Our Part to Defeat Diabetes” program at the school, which teaches Physical Education students the difference between Type I and Type II diabetes. She also emphasizes how Type II, known as adult-onset diabetes, can be prevented by making healthy lifestyle choices.
By Alison Ecklund
Big Park Community School was one of 10 Arizona schools to receive a $1,000 grant from McDonald’s last month.
The McDonald’s/AZ PTA Go Active! Academic Award, which is given for innovative programs promoting physical fitness, selected Big Park, thanks to physical education teacher Kortney Zesiger.
Zesiger is responsible for starting the “Doing Our Part to Defeat Diabetes” program at the school, which teaches Physical Education students the difference between Type I and Type II diabetes. She also emphasizes how Type II, known as adult-onset diabetes, can be prevented by making healthy lifestyle choices.
For the past two years, Zesiger has held a walk to raise awareness of diabetes.
Kindergarten through second-grade students walk a half mile; third- through fifth-graders walk one-and-a-half miles; and sixth- through eighth-graders walk three miles.
Last spring, the walk helped raise $7,000 for the Junior Diabetes Research Foundation, she said.
The grant money will go toward making the walk better this spring, according to Zesiger, by providing healthy snacks and an educational tent for students to go through after the walk.
According to Big Park Parent Teacher Student Association President Jennifer Perry, Zesiger’s license plate reads “FIT4LIFE,” and that’s true in all that she does with the students.
“It’s a totally different philosophy for me,” Zesiger said. “I teach my kids to be fit for life so they can have tools to live a healthy lifestyle.”
Students at Big Park are learning a lot about things like heart disease, obesity and diabetes, Zesiger said, “Or else I’m not doing my job.”
Perry can attest that she is … and it’s working.
“My second grade daughter is an incredibly picky eater, and one evening at dinner, she announced that she was going to make healthy choices and eat all of her vegetables,” Perry recalled. “Everyone at our kitchen table almost choked on their dinner.”
Zesiger was the reason for her daughter’s change of palate, Perry said.
Perry also remembers going to the school one day and seeing Zesiger and the kindergartners speed walking all around campus, learning to incorporate exercise into their daily activities.
According to Zesiger, colleges have started to incorporate the philosophy of healthy lifestyle choices to PE majors instead of just sports and competitiveness.
“This is the first generation of any kids that their parents might outlive them — the first time ever that could happen,” Zesiger said. So she’s doing her best to make sure it doesn’t.
Alison Ecklund can be reached at 282-7795, ext. 125, or e-mail aecklund@larsonnewspapers.com
