Oaklands Community College Edenderry is fittest school in Ireland

Oaklands Community College in Edenderry is Ireland’s fittest school! The school was announced the winner of the inaugural Aviva Health’s Schools Fitness Challenge 2013 by Health Minister James Reilly and Dublin GAA star Bryan Cullen at an awards ceremony at Aviva Stadium in Dublin.

First and second year students at Oaklands beat off competition from almost 8,000 other students from 218 schools to claim the award. The challenge saw student fitness levels assessed over a six week period and also saw them advocate for improvements in their overall health.

Oaklands Community College completed an average of 89 shuttle runs to be named fittest school, and PE teacher Roisin O’Connell said she’s delighted. “We are thrilled to be the first school awarded the title of Ireland’s Fittest School,” she said.

“The students worked incredibly hard to reach their fitness goals, and they achieved this by doing 20 minutes of aerobic activity at the start of every PE class, partaking in extra physical exercise during their mid-term break and going for walks and runs together along the canal. Our hope is that all the students maintain their levels of physical activity, and push themselves to be regularly active right through to adulthood.”

The challenge found Irish boys to be 60 fitter than girls. Post-training, boys completed an average of 62 shuttle runs compared with the girls who completed a low average of 38 shuttle runs.

CEO of Aviva Health Alison Burns said at the competition launch that the company had paid out over €7.5m last year in claims for treatments where obesity is a key risk factor.

“As a health insurer, it is very important to us to encourage our customers to take a pro-active approach to their health to manage the cost of obesity related claims,” she said. “We were delighted with the level of participation in the Aviva Health Schools Fitness Challenge, which really highlights the importance of tracking the fitness levels of our youth to improve the health of children in Ireland. We congratulate the winning schools and encourage other schools to join us in next year’s challenge.”

Meanwhile Health Minister James Reilly said the initiative comes at “a most opportune time”. “This government recently published Healthy Ireland, a government framework to improve the health and wellbeing of people living in Ireland over the coming generation,” he explained.

“Healthy Ireland has 64 actions that require a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach to improve health and wellbeing and reduce the health risks posed to future generations. Healthy Ireland will bring further impetus to the existing programmes and strategies in place right across the education sector to improve the health of our young people, their teachers and families.”

Professor Moyna of the Centre of Preventative Medicine said she thinks the fitness levels of children should be assessed at the beginning and end of each school year, with fitness given the same priority as academic subjects. “Children should be educated about why it’s important to be fit from a fitness perspective, but also what physical activity actually does physiologically to their heart and lungs, so there’s a clear understanding of how the body responds to exercise,” she said.

More information on the Aviva Health School Fitness Challenge is available at www.avivahealth.ie/fitnesschallenge.