OK. I am guilty of jumping all over exertainment being introduced into schools without having a full understanding of it.

I received a thoughtful comment to my earlier blog post , from Ernie Medina, Jr. of the Beaver Medical Group and XRtainment Zone LLC, who is actually involved in the project in the Redlands School District and works along side Sue Buster.

An exerpt from his reply:

The kids I see through my work, however, are a different story. They are overweight, which makes it difficult for them to participate in these kinds of activities. They usually don’t have the skills to do well in these sports.

The proverbial “fat kid” is always picked last on any team-related sports like baseball, soccer, or basketball, thus further depressing their self-esteem and confidence.

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Not only that, many schools are reducing PE time to barely once a week. And just recently, there was a news article about how during recess time, many schools let their kids eat their snacks instead of playing and being active.

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The best thing to do is play them for yourself, and see kids–especially overweight kids–play them, and compare it to their participation in traditional PE, and you’ll be amazed at the difference that will soon be obvious. We’ve seen that in our clinic with our own Kid Fit class, and now we want to see it happen in our school setting so we can reach a wider range of kids, especially those who are unfit and overweight.

It’s worth reading his entire rebuttal. One thing that may have come out of this discussion is that Ernie has apparently created a Blogger account and has posted his comment as his first post in his own blog. I hope he keeps on blogging his experiences and progress for all of us to follow and learn from.

I hope that he continues to have the success that he claims so far. If indeed kids do like this game and if it does make them lose weight and be healthier then that is certainly a good thing. If these kids do become more confident and if it teaches them to enjoy more outdoor and team sports, then that’s an even greater thing.