Make Fitness Part Of School Day##M:[more]##
Back to school time is a great time to teach kids how to make heart healthy choices. The American Heart Association and the Clinton Foundation formed the Alliance for a Healthier Generation to ensure that today’s generation of kids grow up healthy.
With more than 9 million children and adolescents ages 6-19 considered overweight or obese, according to the American Heart Association, the joint goal of the Alliance for a Healthier Generation is to stop the increasing prevalence of childhood obesity in the United States by 2010 and to reduce childhood obesity rates by 2015.
While it’s important to focus on core subjects like science and math, we can’t forget the need to have comprehensive physical education (PE) programs in our schools. Not only will PE help combat the childhood obesity epidemic, it will simulate the mind and motivate children to learn.
As Congress moves forward with the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), we must encourage lawmakers to support the Fitness Integrated with Teaching Kids Act (FIT Kids – HR 3257), federal legislation that would better integrate PE into NCLB. The bill would encourage schools to have quality PE programs and provide more detailed information and training to parents about supporting kids’ healthy lifestyles.
We’re facing an obesity epidemic that puts our children at greater risk of developing heart disease as adults. Without aggressive action, reports indicate that this could be the first generation of children that does not live as long as their parents. We need to find ways to incorporate more quality PE and activity into our children’s lives. The FIT Kids Act would help us achieve that goal. I encourage all of New Jersey’s congressional delegation to co-sponsor HR 3257 to help ensure a truly healthier generation. Len Saunders
Saunders is a New Jersey volunteer and spokesperson for the American Heart Association, a member of the Get Moving-Get Healthy New Jersey Advisory Coalition, and past consultant to the President’s Council on Physical Fitness & Sports.
WW’s New Motto: Damn
The Costs, Full Speed Ahead?
Damn the costs, full speed ahead seems to be the motto of the township. The taxpayers will pay regardless of the cost. We hire architects and planners, and they design and propose projects without regard to cost or the wishes of the taxpayers. Two examples are the senior center and the station redevelopment project.
In the case of the senior center, the design will cost $2.5 million which is a million dollars above the cost parameter of $1.5. Rather than firing the architect, what is the solution? Build it in two phases, the taxpayers will pay. If any individual gave the architect the job of designing a house with a $1.5 budget and he designed one for more than $1 million more, then he would fire the architect.
Let us return to the case of the redevelopment: The planner’s proposal with cost projections ran into severe opposition. What is the solution? Let’s have more meetings to convince the opposition that they are wrong. Are the planner’s cost projections more accurate than the architect of the senior center? Who is running the township — the people or the architects?
I do not think that I need re-education on the subject of re-development. As a former consultant and professor of accounting at NYU Graduate School of Business, I feel that I have enough education to evaluate a proposal poorly conceived and without merit. In my Capital Budgeting class I would have the mayor and the Hillier Group an F for their proposal. However, I would have given them an A for arrogance and a waste of taxpayer’s money. Why continue down this path?
Joel Zelnick
12 Rabbit Hill Road,
West Windsor
Trail Clean-Up:
All Are Welcome
Here is an upcoming opportunity to help improve our trail network in West Windsor.
On Saturday, September 8, please meet us in front of Roger Alig’s house (17 Landing Lane) at 2 p.m., right across from the Roger’s Preserve sign on Landing Lane. We will work on clearing and widening of the Rogers Preserve trails. Please bring hoes, even more hoes, hard rakes, clippers, scythes, and please wear gloves and a hat.
Please spread the word, especially among your Sherbrooke neighbors since the Sherbrooke picnic is later that day and walking the trails has become an annual event at the picnic. Please RSVP if you can. Ken Carlson
West Windsor Bicycle and Pedestrian Alliance (WWBPA)
WWAC Fundraiser
Thank you for informing your readers about our book and speaking engagements, particularly the event at the Senior Center on Sunday, September 23 (The News, August 24). The many phone calls and E-mails we have received is a testament to the wide readership of the West Windsor-Plainsboro News.
In addition to the information that was published, we would like to inform readers that the West Windsor Arts Council (WWAC) event on September 23, from 2:30 to 5 p.m., is a fundraiser to support the WWAC in its mission of providing quality arts events to the West Windsor community. We will give a PowerPoint presentation at 3:15 p.m., and sign books both before and after the lecture. Twenty-five percent of the entire day’s sales will be donated to the WWAC. RSVP is recommended: Call 609-919-1982 or E-mail info@westwindsorarts.org.
We appreciate your publishing items and issues that are important to the West Windsor and Plainsboro communities.
Ina Brosseau Marx, Allen Marx
Claridge Court, West Windsor
