Aetna Funds Dance Programs To Fight Obesity
Foundation Giving $63,000 To Programs For Minority Children And Families In Low-Income Parts Of Hartford, Harlem, Chicago And San Francisco.
By MATTHEW STURDEVANT, msturdevant@courant.comThe Hartford Courant
9:25 PM EDT, March 13, 2011
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Olivia Ilano-Davis threw up her arms up like a vaudeville actor playing the victim of a stickup as she faced her dance class of young children.
"Arms up!" she said to about 20 pre-kindergarten to third-grade students.
Some jumped into the pose and others mimicked the boys and girls to their left or right. Then they followed a handful of teachers in skipping, gliding, stretching and bounding across a padded dance floor on a recent afternoon at the Charter Oak Cultural Center in Hartford.
For nearly two hours, the children danced and played under the instruction of Ilano-Davis and her resident dance company, Spectrum In Motion. The children were active after school. They weren't home on the couch, playing video games.
And that's exactly why Hartford-based health insurer Aetna donated $15,000 to this dance program that serves more than 400 children ages 4 to 18 on weekdays and Saturdays.
You've heard of dancing the night away. Aetna wants people to dance the fat away.
The Aetna Foundation announced this month it is giving $63,000 to four dance programs to reduce obesity among minority children and families in low-income parts of Hartford, Harlem, Chicago and San Francisco.
Obesity is the single biggest factor negatively affecting the nation's health; it drives up costs for treatment of diabetes, hypertension and even cancer. Aetna and other health insurers are giving an increasing amount of money to obesity research and efforts to improve diet and exercise.
Last year, the Aetna Foundation gave more than $2.3 million in support of obesity research and programs to cut back on the nation's waistline. Dance is emerging as a universal and accessible way for people to trim down or stay fit.
"We're also particularly interested in reaching out to low-income and minority communities, and, so, it just happens that dance is actually a pretty low-entry kind of sport; it's not like skiing where you have to buy a lot of equipment," said Dr. Anne Beal, a pediatrician and head of the Aetna Foundation.
"There's something in dance that really resonates with anyone and everyone," Beal said. "We were able to have a real wide range of programs, but they all really targeted this issue of obesity, and they were able to be meaningful in an African American community, a Latino community, in many different communities where we're trying to work."
Medical research hasn't tested dance, per se, but researchers have concluded that 30 minutes of "moderate activity" a day helps reduce obesity, Beal said.
Aetna says obesity is 51 percent more prevalent among African Americans and 21 percent more prevalent among Latinos than among white people across the nation. In Hartford, more than half of parents are obese and one in three children are obese, according to a 2007 study by the University of Connecticut Center for Public Health and Health Policy.
The children at the Hartford dance program Stretching For Life, however, look fit. Their teachers are the portrait of athleticism, muscled bodies moved gracefully to the Earth, Wind & Fire song "Sun Goddess."
"I think it's important to start early because it's an organic connection to how your body moves," said Rebecca Sullivan, 26, who started danced in an after-school program 10 years ago led by Ilano-Davis at Hartford Public High School. Sullivan is now part of the dance company. She agrees with the benefits of exercise, but points out that dance is beneficial in other ways.
"The ramifications are huge: Kids do better in school, they feel more confident, they think better, it helps with problem-solving. … It helps kids get in touch with their emotions and work them through productively," said Rabbi Donna Berman, executive director of the Charter Oak Cultural Center. "It's got a lot of benefits to it, not to mention obesity — kids have been getting exercise in a really fun way."
The center has offered its after-school dance program since February 2002, when, Berman said, children were asking to learn dance.
"What they said was they wanted to learn to dance like Jennifer Lopez," Berman said.
So, Berman sought out Ilano-Davis to start an after-school program. Donations and grants have kept it going ever since.
Ilano-Davis calls her youngest dance class her "busy bodies."
"They love to move," she said.
One of the dancers, 7-year-old Dominic Hernandez, said, "I like that we get to dance, and jump and run."
The second-floor dance room at the cultural center was a sanctuary and is lit by stained-glass windows in a building that was a synagogue in the 19th century and early 20th-century. Seated in one of the cushioned pews during dance class, Blanca Burns, a West Hartford mother who grew up in El Salvador, said she enrolled her daughter, Kaylee, 6, to help her be more confident and outgoing. She'd like her son Conner, 8, to dance, too. He spends a little too much time playing video games in the afternoons, she said.
"For him, I wanted him to do the exercise," Burns said.
"Arms up!" she said to about 20 pre-kindergarten to third-grade students.
Some jumped into the pose and others mimicked the boys and girls to their left or right. Then they followed a handful of teachers in skipping, gliding, stretching and bounding across a padded dance floor on a recent afternoon at the Charter Oak Cultural Center in Hartford.
For nearly two hours, the children danced and played under the instruction of Ilano-Davis and her resident dance company, Spectrum In Motion. The children were active after school. They weren't home on the couch, playing video games.
And that's exactly why Hartford-based health insurer Aetna donated $15,000 to this dance program that serves more than 400 children ages 4 to 18 on weekdays and Saturdays.
You've heard of dancing the night away. Aetna wants people to dance the fat away.
The Aetna Foundation announced this month it is giving $63,000 to four dance programs to reduce obesity among minority children and families in low-income parts of Hartford, Harlem, Chicago and San Francisco.
Obesity is the single biggest factor negatively affecting the nation's health; it drives up costs for treatment of diabetes, hypertension and even cancer. Aetna and other health insurers are giving an increasing amount of money to obesity research and efforts to improve diet and exercise.
Last year, the Aetna Foundation gave more than $2.3 million in support of obesity research and programs to cut back on the nation's waistline. Dance is emerging as a universal and accessible way for people to trim down or stay fit.
"We're also particularly interested in reaching out to low-income and minority communities, and, so, it just happens that dance is actually a pretty low-entry kind of sport; it's not like skiing where you have to buy a lot of equipment," said Dr. Anne Beal, a pediatrician and head of the Aetna Foundation.
"There's something in dance that really resonates with anyone and everyone," Beal said. "We were able to have a real wide range of programs, but they all really targeted this issue of obesity, and they were able to be meaningful in an African American community, a Latino community, in many different communities where we're trying to work."
Medical research hasn't tested dance, per se, but researchers have concluded that 30 minutes of "moderate activity" a day helps reduce obesity, Beal said.
Aetna says obesity is 51 percent more prevalent among African Americans and 21 percent more prevalent among Latinos than among white people across the nation. In Hartford, more than half of parents are obese and one in three children are obese, according to a 2007 study by the University of Connecticut Center for Public Health and Health Policy.
The children at the Hartford dance program Stretching For Life, however, look fit. Their teachers are the portrait of athleticism, muscled bodies moved gracefully to the Earth, Wind & Fire song "Sun Goddess."
"I think it's important to start early because it's an organic connection to how your body moves," said Rebecca Sullivan, 26, who started danced in an after-school program 10 years ago led by Ilano-Davis at Hartford Public High School. Sullivan is now part of the dance company. She agrees with the benefits of exercise, but points out that dance is beneficial in other ways.
"The ramifications are huge: Kids do better in school, they feel more confident, they think better, it helps with problem-solving. … It helps kids get in touch with their emotions and work them through productively," said Rabbi Donna Berman, executive director of the Charter Oak Cultural Center. "It's got a lot of benefits to it, not to mention obesity — kids have been getting exercise in a really fun way."
The center has offered its after-school dance program since February 2002, when, Berman said, children were asking to learn dance.
"What they said was they wanted to learn to dance like Jennifer Lopez," Berman said.
So, Berman sought out Ilano-Davis to start an after-school program. Donations and grants have kept it going ever since.
Ilano-Davis calls her youngest dance class her "busy bodies."
"They love to move," she said.
One of the dancers, 7-year-old Dominic Hernandez, said, "I like that we get to dance, and jump and run."
The second-floor dance room at the cultural center was a sanctuary and is lit by stained-glass windows in a building that was a synagogue in the 19th century and early 20th-century. Seated in one of the cushioned pews during dance class, Blanca Burns, a West Hartford mother who grew up in El Salvador, said she enrolled her daughter, Kaylee, 6, to help her be more confident and outgoing. She'd like her son Conner, 8, to dance, too. He spends a little too much time playing video games in the afternoons, she said.
"For him, I wanted him to do the exercise," Burns said.
