Ten thousand steps and more. In turn, Evine, Ahmed, Ibrahim… alternate exercises in the gymnasium of the Marcelin-Berthelot college in Nogent-sur-Oise (Oise). This Tuesday in April, the eight classes of 6e chain nine events. The goal: to measure their physical condition. Students must first make the maximum round trip of 20 meters for three minutes, to test their endurance, then coordination tests, long jumps, and must run for 30 meters; then come push-ups, knees on the ground, then a test of flexibility. This is the Diagnoform (or measurement of physical condition), proposed as part of the Living in Shape (VIF) programof which Nogent-sur-Oise has been a member since 2022.
Proposed by the association Federating cities for health, the program “aims to promote health by acting from school and extracurricular activities, but also at home, in order to reduce social inequalities and prevent overweight and obesity, through workshops and social or incentive marketing tools ( notebooks, posters, etc.)explains Thibault Deschamps, president of VIF.
“The program is deployed across the city, by training teachers, extracurricular staff, municipal agents, around better movement, eating well, but also sleep, screens or even well-being”, explains Stéphane Lahache, VIF Project Manager in this town of 21,500 inhabitants.
Give the taste of effort
That day, Sabrina Bendoukhane, PE teacher at Marcelin-Berthelot college, led the exercises, with the help of other PE teachers from the establishment, students in professional youth certificates, popular education and sport – a diploma which prepares for careers as a facilitator or sports educator – as well as retired volunteers. “The children have fun, the aim being to improve their performance and give them a taste for effort. There is emulation, the collective allowing self-transcendence”, observes Sabrina Bendoukhane. Its objective is also to do prevention.
The same test was carried out in March 2022 in the CP and CE1 classes of the Jean-Moulin elementary school, which has 245 students. Each time, the height and weight of the children are given. These players in the field are seeing more and more cases of overweight and obesity among children. “For the CPs at Jean-Moulin school, about 20% of children are above a BMI of 25 [seuil du surpoids] against 17% national average, and this figure reaches 27% in CM1”notes Stéphane Lahache.
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