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This information was printed from The President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports,
located at http://www.fitness.gov
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From the Executive Director
Melissa Johnson

We kicked off National Physical Fitness and Sports Month (May) with a proclamation (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/04/20060420-9.html) from President Bush. He encourages all individuals to participate in daily physical activity and draws upon the words of President Kennedy who stated, “We do not want…a nation of spectators. We want a nation of participants in the vigorous life.” The participants in the 3rd HealthierUS Fitness Challenge on May 6, 2006, stepped up and participated in the “vigorous life.” This highly interactive event featured the latest and greatest in health and sports activities and programs being offered nationwide. I am truly grateful to all the exhibitors and thank them for the lengths they went to share their programs and expertise.

I could not have asked for a better bookend to May Month than the official swearing-in of our new council members. President Bush appointed these members based on their remarkable experience and ability to make a difference in this country. John Burke (http://www.fitness.gov/bio_burke.htm) will serve as Chair of the Council, and Dr. Dot Richardson (http://www.fitness.gov/bio_richardson.htm) continues as Vice-Chair. We have a full list of goals to accomplish these next two years, and we are off to a great start! The PCPFS staff and I look forward to working with the Council Members to get more Americans active and moving.

Finally, I remind you that June is Great Outdoors Month (http://www.greatoutdoorsmonth.org/). What better place to be active than in the wonderful parks and waterways that dot our landscape. When designating June as Great Outdoors Month, President Bush said, “Outdoor recreation provides an opportunity to enjoy the splendor of our Nation’s remarkable natural treasures and reminds us of our responsibility to be good stewards of the environment.”

So, go out and be active this summer and enjoy all the Great Outdoors has to offer!

All my best,

Melissa Johnson, M.S.

Council Members' Activities

Appointees to the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports were sworn in at the White House on May 24 (2006). After the appointees met with President George W. Bush in the Oval Office, Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt performed the swearing in ceremony in the presence of members’ families and invited guests in the library of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The Council will be led by Chair John Burke and Vice-Chair Dr. Dot Richardson.

This council is comprised of leaders in corporate health and fitness, sports and entertainment, and health care. Read more (http://www.fitness.gov/about_bios.htm) about each of the twenty council members and stay tuned for more information about their activities.

Feature Article:
Coaching Children to Embrace a "Love of the Game"
Maureen R. Weiss, Ph.D., Professor and PCPFS Science Board Member

Coaches occupy multiple roles in children’s lives as sport participants. Coaches must be excellent instructors so that youth learn and improve skills, increase knowledge of strategies and tactics, and achieve their goals. Coaches can also inspire children to maintain motivation for participating in sport and, in so doing, allow them opportunities to accrue such benefits as positive self-esteem, enjoyable experiences, long-lasting friendships, and a positive attitude toward the value of lifetime physical activity. In short, coaches can ensure that youth want to continue their sport involvement—that is, participate for intrinsic reasons—rather than participate for primarily external reasons such as feeling obligated to others to continue. How can coaches maximize their positive impact on youths’ motivation in sport?

Ingredients of children’s motivation in sport
Children participate in sport for multiple reasons, the most prominent among them being developing physical competence (learning and improving skills), attaining social acceptance and approval (be with and make friends, interactions with parents and coaches), and enjoying one’s experiences (having fun, doing something interesting). Coaches can maintain and promote greater motivation by engaging in behaviors and structuring practices to meet these motivational needs. The three main reasons children participate in sport means that coaches should be mindful of enhancing players’ perceptions of competence, ensuring positive social influence, and keeping practices and games fun and enjoyable. These three ingredients of motivation—perceived competence, social support, and enjoyment—are necessary for sustaining children’s "love of the game."

Coaches, parents, and peers (teammates, close friends) directly influence children’s perceived competence or beliefs about their ability in sport. Perceptions of competence, in turn, influence feelings of enjoyment and motivation in the form of intrinsic/extrinsic reasons, effort exerted, and persistence following mistakes. If we hone in on coaches as the source of social influence, we can identify specific coaching behaviors and principles that will maximize the probability that perceived competence, enjoyment, and motivation will thrive.

Provide optimal challenges
Coaches can satisfy athletes’ need for developing and demonstrating physical competence by carefully matching the difficulty of skills or activities with the child’s capabilities. I like to think of optimal challenges as ones that match the activity to the child, and not the child to the activity. In short, optimal challenges are those that are at the cutting edge of a child’s potential. Goals that are too easy are boring and simplistic; goals that are too difficult are likely to invoke anxiety and fear of failure. Coaches can ensure optimal challenges by setting hard but realistic goals for all participants; outlining developmental skill progressions that allow children to systematically achieve goals; and modifying facilities, equipment, or activities to optimize task difficulty relative to the child’s skill level.

Maximize social support
Acceptance and approval by adults and peers strongly influence children’s perceptions of competence, enjoyment, and motivation. Coaches can make an impact on these elements in several ways.

First, they can provide frequent and contingent informational feedback on how to improve skills. The term contingent means specific to or directly related to level of performance. For example, a baseball coach might praise a player for executing correct technique in hitting a ball to the opposite field, and then follow-up with information on how to get out of the batters box and up the line to first base more quickly.

In response to a skill error, focusing on information for improving on the next attempt, rather than punishing the error, is a contingent and effective means of motivating players to sustain their effort. The literature clearly shows that frequent, contingent instruction by the coach to enhance sport skills and strategies sends a message to players that they have the ability to improve, and this is a motivating factor.

A second means of coaches providing social support is through contingency and quality of praise and criticism. Contingent praise might be our baseball coach reinforcing a player for making the correct decision in response to a fielder’s choice, while contingent criticism might be constructively questioning a player for committing a mental error on a play he/she has mastered many times before.

This latter behavior should suggest to the athlete that the coach believes he/she has the ability to do better. This brings us to the term qualityof praise and criticism. Quality refers to the appropriateness of the feedback. Is it too much or too little? For what level of performance or task difficulty is it given? The general rule to ensure quality or appropriate feedback is: (a) don’t give excessive praise, (b) don’t give praise for mediocre performance, and (c) don’t give praise for success at easy tasks that everybody can do.

Make sure sport experiences are fun
Fun does not have to solely mean pizza or McDonalds after the game. Enjoyment can be part of the fabric of practices and competitions. Children and adolescents experience fun when there are opportunities for high levels of action, personal involvement in the action, and affirming friendships.

Activities during practice could be structured to maximize action by eliminating waiting in line, ensuring sufficient equipment, and keeping things moving with short but intense and varied activities. Children also enjoy having some input to their experiences. Although coaches certainly make up the practice plan and orchestrate the pace and content of activities, children can be part of the decision-making process such as choosing warm-up drills or an activity at the end of practice. Providing some opportunity for autonomy translates to greater fun and enjoyment.

Create a mastery motivational climate
The motivational climate refers to how the learning environment is structured, what behaviors are valued, and how individuals are evaluated. A mastery motivational climate is one in which success and valued behaviors are defined in self-referenced terms such as learning, effort, and improvement, and mistakes are viewed as part of the learning process.

By contrast, a performance motivational climate is one that emphasizes norm-referenced definitions of success such as comparison to teammates’ performances and game outcome. The sport environment is one that contains some mixture of both mastery and performance climates.

The key is for coaches to recognize, praise, and emphasize athletes’ personal improvements because such actions are under athletes’ control and thus more motivating than emphasizing peer comparisons. The acronym TARGET identifies elements of a mastery motivational climate, and also reinforces some of our earlier coaching concepts. TARGET includes:

Task (optimal challenges v. standardized goals),
Authority (player choice v. coach-directed only),
Recognition (reinforcing effort and improvement, not only outcome),
Grouping (cooperative teamwork v. competitive orientation),
Evaluation (assessing improvement v. normative criteria), and
Time (adequate time for learning and improvement).

Help children help themselves
Coaches can also motivate athletes by teaching them self-regulated learning strategies, which allow children to depend on themselves, not only adults, to monitor and evaluate their skill improvement and performance. Self-regulated learning consists of self-observation, self-judgment, and self-reinforcement. These processes refer to monitoring one’s behaviors to assess progression toward skills, comparing one’s current performance with desired goals, and reacting positively or negatively concerning progress toward goal achievement.

Strategies such as goal setting, reframing negative to positive self-talk, and encouraging adoption of effort attributions for performance setbacks allow children a constructive means of evaluating their progress and readjusting their sights, maintaining a positive mental attitude rather than getting down on themselves, and seeking out alternative strategies as a means of problem solving rather than ascribing skill errors to factors outside of their control.

Take-home messages
Coaching to embrace a "love of the game" means understanding that multiple reasons underlie children’s participation patterns. The major reasons children play sports is to develop and demonstrate physical competence, experience positive social interactions with adults and peers, and have fun and enjoyable times. These three reasons form the ingredients of intrinsic motivation—one that is synonymous with an inherent desire to continue involvement.

To maximize motivation, coaches can positively affect children’s sport experiences by providing optimal challenges, maximizing social support, ensuring enjoyable activities, creating a mastery motivational climate, and helping children help themselves. Each of these principles can be easily customized with sport-specific examples and applied during practices and competitive events to maintain, sustain, and enhance children’s "love of the game.”

Suggested References:
Horn, T.S. (2002). Coaching effectiveness in the sport domain. In T.S. Horn (Ed.), Advances in sport psychology (2nd ed., pp. 309-354). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Weiss, M.R. (2000). Motivating kids in physical activity. President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports Research Digest, 3 (11) 1-8.

Weiss, M.R. (2003). Social influences on children’s psychosocial development in youth sports. In R.M. Malina & M.A. Clark (Eds.), Youth sports – Perspectives for a new century (pp. 109-126). Monterey, CA: Coaches Choice.

Weiss, M.R., & Williams, L. (2004). The why of youth sport involvement: A developmental perspective on motivational processes. In M.R. Weiss (Ed.), Developmental sport and exercise psychology: A lifespan perspective (pp. 223-268). Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology.

This article originally appeared in the Spring, 2004 issue of Olympic Coach. Olympic Coach e-magazine can be accessed for free at: http://coaching.usolympicteam.com/coaching/ksub.nsf

Mark Your Calendar

JUNE
Great Outdoors Month (http://www.funoutdoors.com/)
3: National Trails Day (http://www.americanhiking.org/)
6-7: HHS Obesity Conference
7-10: IHRSA Club Industry East (http://www.clubindustryshow.com/east/)
12-18: Men’s Health Week (http://www.menshealthweek.org/)
14-18: National Athletic Trainers’ Association Annual Meeting (http://www.nata.org/)
23: Deadline for abstract submission for the National Prevention Summit (http://www.healthierus.gov/steps/summit.html)
24-26: PTA National Convention (http://www.pta.org/ne_conference_details_1116942630843.html)
30: Deadline for National Trails Day Coloring Contest (http://www.americanhiking.org/events/ntd/ntdkids.html)

JULY
12-15: National Strength and Conditioning Association National Conference (http://www.nsca-lift.org/Conferences/general.shtml)
25-29: IDEA World Fitness Convention (http://www.ideafit.com/world/index.asp)
26: Meeting of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, Humphrey Building, Washington, D.C.

SEPTEMBER
Healthy Aging Month (http://www.healthyaging.net/)
5-8: Pro Walk Pro Bike 2006 (http://www.bikewalk.org/conference/index.html)
11: One Day’s Pay (http://www.onedayspay.org/)
25-30: Active Aging Week (http://www.icaa.cc/)

Save the Date:
October 26-27, 2006: National Prevention Summit: Prevention, Preparedness, and Promotion, Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. (http://www.healthierus.gov/steps/summit.html)
October 26-28, 2006: Cooper Institute Conference Series Parks, Recreation, and Public Health: Collaborative Frameworks for Promoting Physical Activity, Dallas, TX (http://www.cooperinst.org/sciconf.asp)

Grant Applications
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH:

Diet Composition and Energy Balance (R01)
(PA-06-173)
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine
National Cancer Institute
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
National Institute on Aging
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
Office of Dietary Supplements
Application Receipt/Submission Date(s): Multiple dates, see announcement (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-06-173.html).

Diet Composition and Energy Balance (R21)
(PA-06-174)
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine
National Cancer Institute
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
National Institute on Aging
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
Office of Dietary Supplements
Application Receipt/Submission Date(s): Multiple dates, see announcement (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-06-174.html).

Research on the Economics of Diet, Activity, and Energy Balance (R21)
(PA-06-292)
National Cancer Institute
National Institute on Aging
National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Engineering
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research
Application Receipt/Submission Date(s): Multiple dates, see announcement (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-06-292.html).

Understanding Mechanisms of Health Risk Behavior Change in Children and Adolescents (R21)
(PA-06-298)
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
National Cancer Institute
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
National Institute on Drug Abuse
National Institute of Nursing Research
Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research
Office of Dietary Supplements
Application Receipt/Submission Date(s): Multiple dates, see announcement (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-06-298.html).

More information on grants and other governmental funding mechanisms can be found on Grants.gov (http://www.grants.gov/). In addition, the NCPPA E-newsletter (http://www.ncppa.org/enewsletters.asp) lists grants available from a variety of national organizations.

President's Challenge Program Updates

President's Challenge Report*

Registered individuals: 315,099
Number of groups: 19,641
Fitness File Groups: 14,124
Top activities (ranked by points): 1. Walking, 2. Running, 3. Biking

Awards:
Presidential Active Lifestyle Award: 38,792
Presidential Champions:
Bronze award (20,000 points): 26,286
Silver (45,000 points): 12,492
Gold (80,000 points): 7,053
Advanced Performance:
Bronze (40,000 points): 6,612
Silver (90,000 points): 3,466
Gold (160,000 points): 2,107

Remember: You're it, Get fit!

*Numbers current as of April, 2006

Science Board News and Notes

Sharon Plowman, PhD, is the recipient of the 2006 Honor Award. Dr. Plowman is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education at Northern Illinois University (http://www3.niu.edu/knpe/). She has served as chair of the AAHPERD Exercise Physiology Academy and the AAHPERD Physical Fitness Council. Her honors include a University Teaching Excellence Award, the AAHPERD Mabel Lee Award, the Illinois Governor’s Health and Fitness Award, and AAHPERD’s Physical Fitness Council Honor Award. She has published more than 60 peer-reviewed research articles and three books on topics including the effects of physical activity on children, females, and the elderly, and the development and validation of physical fitness tests for firefighters, children, adolescents, and college-aged individuals. In fulfilling the spirit of the Honor Award, Dr. Plowman has served as a catalyst to promote, encourage, and motivate Americans of all ages and abilities to be physically active.

A call for nominations for the 2007 Honor Award winner will be posted in September.

One component of the science partnership with the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) (http://www.acsm.org//AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home_Page) is the role ACSM members will play as coordinators of the President’s Challenge Demonstration Center program (http://www.presidentschallenge.org/educators/school_recognition/demo_center.aspx). These 25 volunteer coordinators will help identify and verify quality physical education/physical activity programs in their states and report their findings to the President’s Challenge (http://www.presidentschallenge.org/index.aspx) program office. A big thanks to ACSM and its members who have agreed to serve in this capacity!

What's New at HHS

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) (http://www.va.gov/) and HHS (http://www.hhs.gov/) have joined forces to improve the health of the nation through the HealthierUS Veterans (http://www.healthierusveterans.va.gov/) initiative. The focus of this joint initiative is to educate veterans, their families, and communities about the health risks of obesity and diabetes. One portion of the program is MOVE! (Managing Obesity/Overweight for Veteran’s Everywhere). MOVE! is an interactive on-line program, which asks a series of questions related to physical activity, nutrition, and health; it provides veterans and their family members with a customized report that includes health information and instructions for future follow-up at VA medical centers.

Office on Women’s Health
The “Body Works Toolkit for Obesity Prevention in Girls and their Families” consists of 9 sessions for parents/caregivers that focus on action steps and provide information on ways to change how the family eats, shops, cooks and moves in an effort to help families improve their lifestyles and prevent overweight and obesity.  The kit contains a video on healthy shopping and cooking, a recipe book, weekly meal planner, and food and fitness journals as well as magazine-like books with information and action steps for the parent/caregiver and for the daughter. 

Based on a train the trainer model, the ideal organizations to use Body Works are:
Community-based organizations
State health agencies
Non-profit organizations
Social service organizations
Health clinics and hospitals and other health systems
Schools
Parent and teacher organizations 

For those interested in training to be a BodyWorks toolkit facilitator, e-mail bodyworks@hagersharp.com

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The Physical Education Curriculum Analysis Tool (PECAT) (http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/pecat/index.htm) is an assessment tool developed by the Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) and physical education experts from across the country. The PECAT helps school districts to conduct a clear, complete, and consistent analysis of written physical education curricula (grades K-12), for the delivery of high-quality physical education in schools and is based on the National Standards for Physical Education published by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education.

In addition, CDC-DASH released the 2005 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (http://www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/yrbs/index.htm) MMWR Surveillance Summary and the 2005 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey data. The Surveillance Summary, new fact sheets, National Youth Risk Behavior Survey data files, and technical documentation are available. The YRBSS monitors six categories of priority health-risk behaviors among high school students including physical activity and unhealthy dietary behaviors.

The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System monitors among high school students six categories of priority health-risk behaviors - behaviors that contribute to unintentional injuries and violence; tobacco use; alcohol and other drug use; sexual behaviors that contribute to unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection; unhealthy dietary behaviors; and physical inactivity - plus overweight and asthma.

National Institutes of Health/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The National Diabetes Education Program (http://www.ndep.nih.gov/) launched It’s Never Too Early to Prevent Diabetes, a campaign to raise awareness about the risk of developing type 2 diabetes for women who have a history of gestational diabetes mellitus and their offspring. Materials are available in English and Spanish (Nunca es Muy Temprano. Para Previnir la Diabetes).

National Institutes of Health
Media-Smart Youth: Eat, Think, and Be Active! (http://www.nichd.nih.gov/msy/) is an interactive after-school program for kids 11-13. The goal of the program is to help children become aware of how media influence them, build skills to make good decisions about nutrition and physical activity, and encourage them to develop healthy behaviors that will last a lifetime.

NIH added three new middle school curriculum supplements to its science and human health series. These free supplements are self-contained teacher's guides to two weeks of lessons that include background information, lesson plans, take-home materials, and a Web-based component. The new titles are aligned with the National Science Education Standards released by the National Academy of Sciences. Of particular interest to the physical activity community is, Looking Good, Feeling Good: From the Inside Out (Exploring Bone, Muscle, and Skin). Seventh and eighth grade students learn about the structures of the musculoskeletal and skin systems, the interactions between these body systems, and the factors that influence their functions.

To request these curriculum supplements or learn more about this series, visit the NIH Office of Science Education Website (http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements).

Your Guide to Healthy Sleep (http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/sleep/healthy_sleep.htm) provides the latest science-based information about sleep in an easy-to-understand format. The 60-page handbook describes how and why we sleep, and offers tips for getting adequate sleep, such as sticking to a sleep schedule, relaxing before going to bed, and using daylight or bright light to help you adjust to jet lag and shift work schedules. Your Guide to Healthy Sleep (http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/sleep/healthy_sleep.htm) can be downloaded free. Printed copies are available for $3.50 through the NHLBI website or from the NHLBI Information Center at P.O. Box 30105, Bethesda, MD 20824-0105, or at 301-592-8573 or 240-629-3255 (TTY).

And elsewhere...

National Center for Education Statistics,
U.S. Department of Education
Calories In, Calories Out: Food and Exercise in Public Elementary Schools, 2005 is the first U.S. Department of Education study to focus on food and exercise in public elementary schools. Highlights:

• 1,198 regular public elementary schools participated (response rate 91%)
• 83-88% of schools reported daily recess across elementary grades with the average number of reported minutes dedicated to recess ranging from 27.8 for first grade to 23.8 for sixth grade
• 7% of first and second grades and 13% of sixth grades report no recess
• 99% of schools reported they schedule physical education for each grade, but only 17-22% provide daily physical education
• At least half of all elementary schools scheduled physical education one or two days each week
• 51% offered school-sponsored before- or after- school activities that emphasize physical activity.