School shapes up!

MORE than 500 Junior School students aged between seven and 11 took part in the British School of Bahrain Health Day.

The seeds were sowed when the Physical Education and the Personal, Social and Health Education departments got together to create an event on ‘how to lead a healthy life style’.

Members of staff were amazed by the response from the Bahrain community, many professionals came in to talk to the children about leading a healthy lifestyle, sport coaches showed the children how they can stay ft and donations of healthy drinks and fruit arrived by the truck load.

A school spokesman said: “The BSB would like to thank all the volunteers who gave up their time to come to the school to teach our students the importance of leading a healthy lifestyle and keeping ft. Without the generosity of these volunteers our frst Health Day would not have been such a success. This was certainly a very informative day for the students, something we now aim to do every year!”

A team from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland – Bahrain (RCSI) led by Zaeid Al Obaidi came in force to show children various ways to stay ft playing sports such as football and basketball and talked about health-related ftness.

The RCSI team of young doctors explained how to lead a healthy lifestyle, the importance of personal hygiene and also taught the students basic frst aid skills, just in case of an emergency.

The children were impressed. “I learned that if you eat healthily, you don’t get fat quickly. If you are ft when you are young you will be healthy when you’re older,” said Joe Gilbert from Year 4.

Each class underwent tennis drills with JC’s Tennis Academy coaches and representatives from My Gym showed the Year 3s the art of gymnastics including backward summersaults and how to use available apparatus.

There was also Tribal Fitness, yoga and nutritional experts highlighting the dangers of obesity and explaining the importance of why plates should be full of colourful foods.

Students were also inspired to look at food labels, heard about the importance of handling food hygienically and also received cooking tips.

The children were then treated to organic fruit juice before hearing about the importance of healthy teeth and gums from an expert in oral hygiene from Seef Dental practice. The Year 6 youngsters were reminded how to brush their teeth correctly and the consequences of not taking proper care of them.

A Bahrain Defence Force doctor told the children about how to keep their hearts healthy, and gave them the opportunity to check each other’s heartbeats using a stethoscope.
The event concluded last week with the children congregating on the football pitch where they joined in an aerobic session.

“The children were exhausted by this time but were very happy to see boxes and boxes of very healthy juicy red apples arrive, compliments of Alosra supermarket,” the school spokesman added. “Teachers, volunteers and students devoured the delicious apples simultaneously!”