High school students fight back while getting fit

December 18, 2016 · 0 Comments

Centre Dufferin District High School Royals forward Mark Taylor leaps over a Westside Secondary School Thunder player during Monday, December 12’ senior game in Shelburne. The game was tied early in the fourth quarter but Westside took a late lead to win the game 69-61. Prominently displayed on the wall is CDDHS’s message to tobacco companies. PHOTO BY BRIAN LOCKHART

By Marni Walsh

On Friday, the students of the fitness-focused, physical education program “SuperGym” at Centre Dufferin District High School (CDDHS) hosted their sixth annual “CD Fit Challenge Day.”

Each year, the SuperGym class chooses a health initiative that has a great impact on youth. Student Taylee Jackson says this year’s initiative is focused on “Breaking Ties with Big Tobacco Lies.”

“Every year Wellington-Dufferin Public Health (WDPH) puts out applications for $500 Youth Tobacco Project grants,” says CDDHS Physical Education teacher Belinda Cox. “For the last four years, my senior fitness classes have organized a fitness day at our school to help promote WDPH initiatives.”

Ms. Cox selects the initiative which “fits best with the interest of our students and what we can do to help promote that initiative.” The events, she says, “are great opportunities for students to practice leadership skills, and also as a way to empower students to make positive changes in their community.”

Students gathered in the gymnasium to participate in what Taylee Jackson describes as “fun exercise circuit stations” and to learn “how big tobacco companies target youth as their future replacement consumers.”

Taylee, along with Caleb Jonker, both Grade Twelve Super Gym students were leaders in this year’s event. Students had an opportunity on December 9 “to sign a petition to advocate government to standardize the plain tobacco packaging and stop the tobacco companies from targeting children and youth,” says Taylee.

SuperGym focuses on healthy active living, training methodologies, and vigorous daily workouts.

“[The] specific goal is to improve the overall health of our students and make positive changes within our community through leadership, dedication and passion for fitness,” says Taylee.

Violetta Halis, a parent of two students in the program, says her son Vincent in Grade 12 and daughter Alannah in Grade 11 “have greatly benefited from this program by having better energy to tackle their academic, musical and artistic pursuits.”

“The Cross Fit program at CDDHS provides many benefits to its students, which they bring with them into the community,” Ms. Halis tells the Shelburne Free Press. “Mrs. Cox and Mr. Kings diligently supervise cross fit students in the execution of Olympic power lifting and gymnastic exercises to prevent injury.

“While many kids are quite competitive and may want to push ahead without proper form, the teachers’ supervision ensures kids are strictly completing these moves without cheating. The emphasis is on individually challenging themselves to achieve their personal best. What an incredible life lesson.”

Mrs. Halis says feels, “The confidence achieved from making noticeable gains gives each student a sense of accomplishment along with a ‘natural high’. The end result is that cross fit helps kids feel good about themselves through achievement, gives them better quality sleep, clearer focus to learn and contribute positively to their community through their jobs and volunteer work. It also teaches good life balance and provides an outlet for stress.”

She says she is “hopeful that our school board continues to support such a worthwhile program.”

As an educator, Ms. Cox says she “loves seeing the changes in these young people’s attitude and their beliefs about fitness, and about their ability.”
She has high praise for all staff at CDDHS noting, “We have very limited in our facility and space, the success of our program is built on the collaborative efforts of the phys-ed staff. Our school administrative team is very supportive of our program. Without that trust, it would not have been possible to have innovative programs like this running.”

Ms. Cox says the school is also very lucky to have the support of “local partners such as Athletes’ Institute, CrossFit Orangeville, Shelburne Foodland, and Tim Horton’s in Shelburne [who have] have stepped forward to sponsor our event. Reebok Canada and JaktRx have also donated prizes for the event.”

To further spread their campaign against big tobacco companies, CDDHS students were preparing to host an inter-school CrossFit Competition on December 14, as the Shelburne Free Press went to press.

Georgian Bay District Secondary School, with a very similar fitness focused course, has been invited to compete with CDDHS in a series of fitness workouts.

“The goal is that these students, who participate in our events and learn about our campaign, will then take it back to their school and raise awareness there and get more students involved,” says Ms. Cox. “The idea is that students from the two schools may be competing with each other as individual teams, but together we compete as one against the tobacco industry.”