Kids get in Shape with Circus Training
November 5, 2005 | Nutrition and Fitness
For years, pediatricians have encouraged overweight children and their parents to make major lifestyle changes, like getting more exercise and eating more fruits and vegetables.
But doctors at the Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic are going one step further by referring their young patients to a variety of low-cost programs to get them up and moving, including circus camp.
Ten-year-old Michele Simons never tires of the trampoline. The unicycle is a lot harder, but she gives it a whirl.
Welcome to the school of acrobatics and new circus arts, a place where novices train in the same gym as circus stars.
But the real passion of founders Charles Johnson and Jo Montgomery is training youngsters, especially kids who don’t like to exercise and don’t like competitive sports, like Michele. “Now she walks to school, which she wasn’t doing before and her asthma is a lot better,” said her mother, Sereatha Simons.
“There are so many skill areas, there’s usually a place they can shine at a little bit,” said Jo Montgomery.
Many circus school students have gone to circus school, not at the suggestion of their gym teacher but their pediatrician.
“We learned that many families lack the knowledge of programs that are available and time is always a problem and money,” said pediatrician Dr. Lenna Liu of the Odessa Brown Clinic, part of Children’s Hospital in Seattle.
She has become so captivated by the idea of circus school that she signed herself up for a class. Montgomery is also a nurse practitioner at the Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic.
All of the exercise programs suggested by the clinic are available for free or at a reduced cost.