Healthy?

Last year, when the Healthy Kids Act started, we no longer had desert at our school and we also had to start using heart rate monitors in gym.  Heart rate monitors are devices that you put underneath your shirt by your heart to see how many beats per minute your heart gets. This data is collected and displayed on a watch. For gym we have to get 30 minute per gym period with a heart rate over 140.This of course raised a lot of complaints.

                At the beginning of all this I, myself had some complaints, but for no really good reason besides the fact that we didn’t get to have cookie dough once or so a week.  We mostly had complaints about the heart rate monitors. And now that I think about it, there are mostly good things about the heart rate monitors and not having cookie dough.

                On the positive side of all this we are, in fact, getting healthier. Especially with the heart rate monitors. We may not be able to see it right away but there are results. Maybe it’s not getting winded when you go up the stairs or losing .5 pounds.  And not eating cookie dough and other deserts means eating more fruits and vegetables. This has fewer calories and more of ‘the good stuff’ like vitamins and minerals.

                On the bad side, sometimes the heart rate monitors don’t work. Maybe because they have low batteries or you are already in shape. But even if you are in shape you have to work just as hard as or even harder than those who do get winded by just walking up the stairs. But I guess that how it has to be. We can complain all we want but that isn’t going to raise our heart rate.