Print edition: 
DANVILLE, Ill. —Five-year-olds dance hip-hop to the alphabet. Third-graders learn math by twisting into geometric shapes, fifth-graders by calculating calories. And everyone goes to the gym — every day.
A small public school in Illinois, Northeast Elementary Magnet School, has taken on a hefty task: reversing obesity.
And it's won a gold medal for it, becoming the first elementary school in the country to receive that award from the Alliance for a Healthier Generation. The Alliance was founded by the American Heart Association and the William J. Clinton Foundation to reduce childhood obesity. Only two other schools have taken the gold.
The cafeteria here serves fresh fruit and vegetables, low-fat or no-fat milk, no sodas or fried foods and no gooey desserts. There are no sweets on kids' birthdays and food is never used as a reward. Teachers wear pedometers and parents have to sign a contract committing to the school's healthy approach.
Northeast Elementary is not in some posh, progressive suburb. It's in Danville, Ill., an economically struggling city of 30,000 in farm country some 150 miles south of Chicago. But teachers, parents and students have embraced the rigorous curriculum and kids even call it "fun."
From the outside, it's a drab 50's-era yellow brick building in a blue-collar neighborhood of modest frame homes, a few blocks from a homeless shelter and a Salvation Army donation center. Inside, it's a cheerful oasis for almost 300 kids and has caught the attention of some of the nation's biggest obesity-fighting advocates.
Former President Clinton says the steps Northeast has taken are an exemplary way to tackle "a terrible public health problem."
"We will never change it by telling people how bad it is. We've got to show people how good it can be," Clinton said, paraphrasing a colleague at the Alliance's June awards ceremony in Little Rock, Ark.
Student buy-in
Northeast's strict, no-goodies program might sound extreme, but students seem to have bought it.
During a recent nutrition lesson, first-graders sat raptly on the hallway floor as a teacher read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," a classic kids' story about a caterpillar that can't seem to stop eating — all kinds of fruit at first. But when the bug moved on to chocolate cake and ice cream, the youngsters gasped and said in hushed tones, "junk food," as if it were poison.
"We're a healthy school," says 10-year-old Naomi Woods, a shy, slim fifth-grader. "We're not allowed to eat junk food or stuff like that."
Sandy-haired Timothy Mills, a fourth-grader, says the focus "just keeps us more fit, plus we have a lot more fun."
Like Mills, an earnest, heavy-set 9-year-old, Northeast kids aren't all skinny. Even some kindergartners are clearly overweight. But they still jump enthusiastically to the alphabet song, and though some kids struggle to run around the football field during gym class, there doesn't seem to be much grumbling.
Physical education teacher Becky Burgoyne said it's sometimes tough to get kids of "all different shapes and sizes" to be physically active.
"I just ask that students do their best and improve on what they can already do," Burgoyne said.
Some schools "may have physical education twice a week, once a week, and that's not acceptable. Children need to move," she said. "To have a healthy body is to have a healthy brain and therefore they become better at reading and math and science. It all works together."
The students mostly mirror Danville and surrounding Vermilion County — generally poorer, less healthy than the state average, with many families struggling with obesity and related problems.
The percentage of overweight kids at Northeast increased in 2009, the program's third year, but dropped slightly last year, to 32 percent; 17 percent are obese. Those are similar to national figures, Principal Cheryl McIntire said. With only three years of data, it's too soon to call the slight dip in the percentage of overweight children a trend. But she considers it a promising sign, and there's no question that the children are learning healthy habits.
Lessons and examples
In a recent math class, fifth grade teacher Lisa Unzicker explained how food labels can be misleading by listing only calories per serving, not per container. Pointing to an image of a pretzel bag label projected on a screen at the front of the classroom, she taught students to figure out how many calories are in a whole bag, based on the amount in each serving.
You have to be careful about potato chips and candy bars, she told the class. "This is why it pays to be a very conscious consumer."
Teachers and parents credit McIntire for the school's success. The principal joined Northeast in 2008, a year after the staff moved to adopt the healthy focus, and has made it her mission to instill that mantra.
McIntire literally "walks the walk." When students need a talking-to, she walks to their classrooms and escorts them to and from her office rather than just messaging for them. When it's her turn for recess duty, she walks with her pedometer around the school's big field instead of standing on the sidelines. She recalls a student recently calling out, "Hey, Mrs. McIntire, are you doing your steps?"
McIntire is closely involved with choosing school menus and secured money from the state and local school district that have paid for fresh produce, including things like kiwi fruit that many children have never seen before.
A recent lunch menu featured whole-grain, reduced-fat cheese pizza, broccoli and cauliflower buds, sweet corn, chilled pears, low-fat pudding, and 1 percent low-fat milk.
McIntire has changed her own eating habits, giving up potato chips and shedding 15 pounds since last year.
School hallways feature signs about good food choices and being healthy, and a poster about the Alliance's gold award is prominently displayed near the school office.
Seeing results
Shelbi Black says Northeast has had an "amazing, life-altering" influence on her kids, 10-year-old Kayla and Carter, 5. They've come home requesting fruits and vegetables they used to reject. Carter was thrilled to make frozen fruit shish kebabs in school, and Kayla "was so excited the other day because she made her goal in running the mile and she was so happy that she knocked down her time from last year," Black said.
Tim Mills' mom, Charlyn Hester, says since the school adopted the healthy program, her family has switched from eating lots of convenience foods to lean grass-fed beef and lots of fruits and vegetables. Her oldest daughter, a recent Northeast graduate, has slimmed down and Hester says she thinks Tim and his 11-year-old sister will, too. Hester herself has lost almost 100 pounds since 2009.
The family's grocery bills are higher, but Hester, a freelance writer, says she and her husband, a security officer, have decided it's worth spending more on food and forgoing things like a new car, for their kids' health.
"It's not necessarily a financial hardship, but it's certainly an investment," she said.
