With each descent, Daysha Matthews grimaces. She’s moving only a matter of inches, down and up, squatting and standing. But the way Matthews is gritting her teeth, she may as well be climbing Mount Everest.
Daysha, 15, is standing in her high school gym, at Thurgood Marshall Academy in Anacostia, surrounded by classmates who are also doing various exercises: sprints, lunges and the dreaded squat-push-up-jump combo known as a burpee.
School Days 2011-12
Among them circulate five coaches from District Crossfit, a gym in Northwest Washington. On this fall day, they are visiting the public charter school to teach kids about fitness and nutrition.
About 20 of Thurgood Marshall’s 400 students have volunteered for the workout. That’s a drop in the bucket among the more than 70,000 public students in the District, many of whom deal with obesity, inactivity and other health risks.
“Just a few more,” says one of the coaches, Noah Gabriel-Landis, as Daysha pumps out another half-squat. “I know you’re hurting, I know you’re tired, but we’re almost there,” he says sympathetically. “Get as low as you can.”
Gabriel-Landis doesn’t harp on the usual mandates he reserves for adult clients: knees out, hips below parallel. Today, “below parallel” is not the point. Today, the goal is to get these kids moving.
As many gym teachers, parents, pediatricians and even government officials will attest, getting kids moving can be an uphill battle.
Nearly a third of American children are overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In the District, 19 percent of high-school-age boys and 16 percent of high-school-age girls are obese. The ward with the highest rate of obesity is Ward 8, where Thurgood Marshall Academy is located and where many of its students live.
Childhood obesity has been classified as an epidemic, prompting the creation of a presidential task force and public awareness campaign. The blame has been spread far and wide, on the fast-food industry, big agriculture, and, more recently, parents.
But at Thurgood Marshall, it’s not about placing blame — it’s about getting kids to take responsibility .
“One push-up is hard,” says Annie Scogin, the teacher who brought the coaches here. “One squat is hard. Life is hard. I hope that’s something they get out of this — that if it hurts, that’s okay. At the end of the workout, I want to see smiles. Tired, panting smiles.”
For residents of Ward 8, the problem has been access. Gyms are expensive, and fresh food is hard to come by.
According to D.C. Hunger, only three of the city’s 43 full-service grocery stores are located in Ward 8. Ward 3, far more affluent, has 11. Just three of the city’s 30 farmers’ markets are located east of the Anacostia River.
To address the access issue, Thurgood Marshall built a new gymnasium, which it shares with neighboring Savoy Elementary School, and began offering a variety of after-school athletics.
The school also provides free breakfast and lunch every day, participates in the D.C. Farm to School Network, which offers locally grown produce at a discounted price to students, and boasts the District’s largest organic teaching garden.
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