Heart Monitors In Middle School Gym Class? 950
An anonymous reader writes "My son brought home an order form from his middle school. Apparently the 7th (his grade) and 8th graders are being asked (required?) to purchase their own straps for the heart monitors they're to wear during gym class. I know nothing yet of the device in question, but have left a voice-mail with the assistant principal asking him to call me so I may ask some questions about the program and the device. My tinfoil-hat concern is that the heart rate data will be tied to each child, then archived and eventually used for/against them down the road when applying for insurance, high-stress jobs, etc. 'I see you had arrhythmia during 7th grade pickle ball? No insurance for you' Has anyone heard of such a program, or had their child(ren) take part in it? Does the device transmit to the laptop the overweight gym teacher will be watching instead of running laps with the kids? Perhaps data is downloaded from the device after the class? Or am I just being paranoid? Thanks for any insight."
Holy shit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever happened to permission slips? Kids run and play. There are inherent risks in allowing them to run and play, but the damage done by not letting them run and play is even greater.
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just to point out, it's the libertarians (little l, meaning the political ideology, not the political party) that are most likely to question what these are being used for, and if they are to become some sort of permanent record, to take umbrage with that. Although you are a tad more likely to find libertarians in the Republican party as opposed to the Democratic party, libertarian != conservative.
Myself, I am a slightly left-leaning centrist libertarian, and a new dad (5 days ago! Woot!), I can understand the concern. This is the sort of odd request that I just have to ask "What is this being used for anyways?" I'm not saying I automatically disapprove of it, whatever it is.
yeah, I know, you're just a troll trying for a few bites. I don't care. This really isn't a response to you anyways. I've just seen too many knee-jerk "let's paint everyone who doesn't agree with us with one broad stroke and thus be able to disregard them all" reactions lately.
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Interesting)
OK, stories like this reveal a fascinating contradiction.
The original question expressed concern that a child's heart rate and other health info would be used to either deny them health insurance or force them into a higher risk pool.
But the libertarian presumption is that free markets with full information work better for everyone involved. The insurers want information that will enable them to remove expensive-to-insure people from coverage where possible, or at least to put them in a much more expensive pool. While they want perfect information (to make insuring people as low-risk and profitable as possible,) clearly the parents of kids who may have pre-existing conditions do not want that information available. Wouldn't the libertarian approach be to allow insurers to take every possible measure to get that information out into the open, so that they can tier insurance appropriately? Doesn't that mean that people who are loath to share their information are probably "free-riding" on lower-risk populations? Wouldn't that make the refusal of information (such as heart rates, etc.) a reasonable basis for refusing insurance, or at least charging a higher premium for it?
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Insightful)
They'll be allowed to run and play, but if they do it during school, they'll wear a heart monitor.
Yes. First, there's the financial cost; it's hard enough for schools to afford, you know, *gym equipment* in the first place, and now you want them to buy heart monitors for every kid as well? Kids can learn about heart rates and pulses quite adequately without that expenditure, and as far as target heart rate and exercise goes, two fingers on the wrist and a frigging watch with a second hand work fine.
Second, there's the social cost. You're either teaching them that "This routine physical activity we're requiring you to engage in is so dangerous it could *kill you* and you need to wear one of these to be safe," or "Our society is so ridiculously litigious and cowardly that this is what it's come to." That generation's going to be even more fucked up than the one that thought the TSA sounded like a good idea.
Oh, how fitting. The captcha I've been given to post this is 'bogeymen.'
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Insightful)
While I understand your point of view I also understand the point of view of parents who's kids have actually died from congenital heart defects which show themselves during physical activity. These heart monitors would alert someone before the kid actually collapsed.
So yes, what they are doing could kill them if it isn't monitored appropriately but that doesn't stop the activity from being important. This is just a way to ease the paranoia of parents while allowing PE classes to stay as opposed to what strategy a lot of schools take which is to get rid of PE entirely. I think this option is better than that option as PE should be considered core education since exercise is something that kids are going to have to do their entire lives.
Yes, it's probably going too far and we as a society should stop being scared of every little things. Playgrounds worked well when our parents were kids and when we were kids, yes, a kid will occasionally break his arm or leg but that's a part of growing up.
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe the parents should take their precious little snowflake to a fucking doctor to check for hear problems if they're that concerned.
Seriously, I'm all for providing a safe environment for kids to play in (those stainless steel slides I had in elementary school put more kids in the nurse's office than anything on hot spring day) but there IS a limit to this.
The devices cost money that is sorely needed for actual education and the PE teachers almost certainly do not have the equipment or training to do anything more significant that call 911. God forbid they DO try to do something and the kid dies anyway. Hello lawsuit!
Have the parents sign a fucking waiver and let the kids run 'till they drop. Seriously.
=Smidge=
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Interesting)
And fuck the waivers. What the hell has this country come to when we need people to sign waivers to RUN?
Re:Holy shit? (Score:4, Informative)
While I understand your point of view I also understand the point of view of parents who's kids have actually died from congenital heart defects which show themselves during physical activity. These heart monitors would alert someone before the kid actually collapsed.
I don't. It's really rare [americanheart.org]. 1.4 per 100,000 death rate means that you have less than 1% chance of seeing it in a given school each year.
Re:Holy shit? (Score:4, Insightful)
While I understand your point of view I also understand the point of view of parents who's kids have actually died from congenital heart defects which show themselves during physical activity. These heart monitors would alert someone before the kid actually collapsed.
Seems simple to me. If the kid's heart is too bad for PE, the kid shouldn't be taking PE at all. Yes, the occasional kid may surprise you and keel over, both life and natural selection are a bitch. If parents want their kids to wear heart monitors (substitute "geolocation devices", "moon suits", etc. as desired), let them purchase them and bully their kids into wearing them (in 90% of the cases, the kid will shuck the gear as soon as they get onto the school bus).
As to the theory that PE teaches kids to enjoy exercise, I'd have to say that I found kick-ball the last exercise done in school that might have been termed enjoyable. Everything subsequent to that involved Nazi gym teachers and resulted in my avoiding those activities for the next 40 years. (Yes, it does show. Thanks for asking.)
Re: (Score:3)
These are middle school kids we are talking about though. I mean serious the PE instructor should be about to give 11-14 year olds a lecture about, if you feel faint, like your heart is racing, etc, etc. You need to stop and come see me.
This is not like its even grade school kids where I'd still be happy to argue this is far from necessary. These are child old enough that they should know if something is wrong. As long as you create an environment where there is not social stigma attached to resting for
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm an EMT. I've seen that exact thing happen, to a 9 year old kid in a YMCA. It should have been found beforehand, but wasn't. Once his heart stopped, it couldn't be restarted (and this kid had just about the best shot possible).
Heart monitors aren't the right answer. It's fucking complicated to interpret an EKG, computers can do a rudimentary piece of that - but the point of physical activity is that muscles are firing, so heart monitoring is absolutely useless.
That's a complete non-sequiter.
WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
When did the user that submitted the article ever mention anything about politics? Or race? The submitter is concerned with ramifications regarding personal rights.
You're the sort of person who just sits around waiting for anything even similar to a discussion so you can spew out your political beliefs and try to act holier-than-thou.
There's the running joke about slashdotters living in their parents basements and not having a life, but you really don't seem to a have a life. So put down the moral superiority and go get one.
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Funny)
The kids will learn about pulses and heart rates and fitness...
...I hope you die.
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Must be my conservative brainwashing.
Re:Holy shit? (Score:4, Insightful)
They'll be allowed to run and play, but if they do it during school, they'll wear a heart monitor. Is this a bad thing?
Teaching kids that physical activity is something to be feared? Yes, that's a bad thing.
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Funny)
You must not have heard the most recent fooferall about how the Barack Osama gummint is trying to vaccinate our kids for H1N1 and shoot Gardisil into our daughter's untouched vaginas.
And what about "President" Hussein bin Obama trying to brainwash our kids with commie-nazi notions about staying in school and working hard?
He can have my daughter's vagina when he wrests it from my cold, dead hands.
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm about as conservative/libertarian as they come. But this post is the funniest thing I've read all day!
I'm a vegetarian, but this is the best hamburger I've ever had.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And in the end, both groups are equally bad.
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, that's a corporate-media spread conventional wisdom that's badly mistaken. \
They are not "equally as bad". Not when one side wants to stop vaccinations and science education.
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Left? Right? This ain't a football game, nancy. You can't chuck everybody in one of two holes.
/guntoting liberal with delusions of anarchy
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Insightful)
You see, it works like this. Much like the late Strom Thurmond, they do get boners over brown and black people. But, because of their ideology, they are not supposed to. So, they pretend they don't and enact (or at least try to enact) strict laws against that sort of thing. And then they get caught knocking up brown and black women. Kind of like with some of the virulently anti-homosexual Republicans. They tend to be closeted, or at least covered, homosexuals. There's nothing wrong with a white person liking black and brown people, or with homosexuals, but the Republicans really should stop trying to outlaw all this considering the people in their own party.
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Interesting)
Clearly the school is afraid of being sued when some kid keels over from too much exertion.
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm betting it's not even that and it's just a heart rate monitor to improve the quality of aerobic exercise. Sounds like a pretty good program to me; if kids are going to not do physical activities willingly and do the bare minimum in gym class, monitoring heart rate might be a necessary evil to ensure they get enough exercise.
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm betting it's not even that and it's just a heart rate monitor to improve the quality of aerobic exercise. Sounds like a pretty good program to me; if kids are going to not do physical activities willingly and do the bare minimum in gym class, monitoring heart rate might be a necessary evil to ensure they get enough exercise.
I use a HRM all the time while running or biking. Its a good way to give you feedback on your exertion level, and will allow the kids to learn more about max heart rate, threshold level etc. I would want my own band also, rather than some sopping wet band from the previous gym class. Unless they spring for the higher end moniors, the data is not downloadable and is not in any fashion similar to an EKG that would be able to determine an arrythmia.
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Holy shit? (Score:4, Insightful)
This seems to be what it's for. I'm 21 now, but during senior year we were required to use pedometers as the first step that was leading up to using heart rate monitors and pedometers to track the amount of work we did. The most we did was record the number of steps we took during class on our own personal chart to keep track of progress. The closest the school got to seeing the charts was when the gym teacher checked over everyone's chart at the end of the week to make sure everyone was doing it and to maybe encourage those that had lower numbers to try harder.
Try and find out from the school what data they'll be keeping, but for the most part this program seems to be getting lazy kids to work harder during gym.
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm betting it's not even that and it's just a heart rate monitor to improve the quality of aerobic exercise. I concur.
I worked as a technical writer for a place that made HRMs. We sold to pro athletes, gyms, personal trainers, Navy seals, fitness enthusiasts of every stripe... we even had a version of the product made especially for training race horses. It was pretty cool.
I was surprised at what a difference using one of those things made in my *own* ability to exercise. I'm an overweight writing nerd, but man: there's nothing like beeping, booping technology to get my interest. Using an HRM is like keeping score on a video game. Or playing the tomagotchi game with your body as the avatar. Or something.
Something fun and trackable, anyway.
The HRM went a long way toward getting me off my butt and dropping pounds because it provided metrics and feedback that I could understand and affect. That's more than my "hustle! hustle! hustle!" school coach ever managed to do.
All this being said: I doubt that the information on your kid is going to be recorded for more than 9 weeks, honestly. There are, like, serious LAWS about that information getting off campus, too. Anybody who is into selling kids' info to Nefarious Businesses Incorporated is going to have access to a lot more dirt than just a weird blip on your child's HRM.
That HRM, by the way, is certainly *not* medically diagnostic in quality. I'd be surprised if it did more than note the heart rate at 1 second intervals and track the changes over time. It *might* try to estimate a general sense of fitness on the heart, but it will, at best, give you a meaningless number on a scale from "is this thing on?" to "cybernetically enhanced athlete trained atop the Himalayas from birth."
No need to worry. The poster's school's coach is probably just trying to do a great job at keeping the kids in his care interested in physical fitness. I applaud him/her for it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There are several issues with that:
a) If kids don't get enough exercise but only what they do in school, that's the parents' problem and maybe the parents' need to be looked after. In Europe, we had only 4 hours of gym class per week and later 2 hours of gym and none of the kids in my school were morbidly obese. We had some fat kids but they weren't keeling over from the exercises they were to do, instead they were coached on how to do better and how to reduce their body weight. I do have a legitimate disab
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Informative)
It isn't monitoring their health status, it is monitoring their excertion level. The purpose of gym class is and always has been to keep kids active by forcing all students into activity and by teaching them about those activities (in the hope that they continue them later in life). That has been and should be the purpose. Teaching kids about maintaining heartrate and the proper level of excertion is 100% in line with those goals.
Excertion == Exertion or excretion?! (Score:3, Funny)
It isn't monitoring their health status, it is monitoring their excertion level.
You mean the teachers are measuring how much they're crapping in the toilet? [google.co.uk] Eeww... that's definitely going too far!
Re:Holy shit? (Score:4, Insightful)
Learning to exercise and keep yourself in shape is a part of the cirriculum.
Start looking up child obesity numbers and you'll see that schools need to be doing more, not less.
I'd imagine the program is to let kids know where their heart rates are, and where they should be to get good exercise. Even if they are recording everything, it's pretty meaningless information. You'd know a person's heart rate from 7th grade.
The bigger issue here is whether your kids are getting exercise and whether they're overweight. If they're heavy, do everything possible to encourage exercise. Once the habits are set, they're incredibly difficult to change once they're adults.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Holy shit? - What are they Teaching (Score:4, Informative)
We learned to take our pulse in grade school. After that, for me at least, there was nothing new in regards to that.
As an adult, whenever I work out I take a heart rate monitor with me. Martial arts, archery, weight lifting, or running I like to know where I'm at. If I'm running I can back my pace down a bit to keep it at good and safe exercise levels, the same is true of martial arts.
When it comes to weight lifting, I can rest up until my heart rate is back to a lower exertion level between sets. And believe me, when you start moving big weights your heart rate will go up in leaps and bounds during the exercise.
Looking back, for football or other team sports I wish we had been able to use an HRM. It would have provided me the info I needed later in life to avoid putting on a lot of the weight I did (though I've subsequently lost it) since I could have used that info to figure out approximately how many calories I was burning.
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Funny)
Or just maybe their afraid that the morbidly obese 4th graders that come wheezing into gym class with secret sauce stains on their chins might have to be watched a little more closely during exercise.
But of course, these are school boards making these decisions, and educators, and everyone knows that educators are all a bunch of commie-fascist-libruls who want to deny our god-given right to raise our kids like veals and stuff them so fat that they won't have the energy to bother us while we're watching Glenn Beck who by-gawd has the number of that Barack bin Obama who wants to force us all to have access to health care just like Hitler.
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Informative)
US health insurance is KILLING US competitiveness abroad(not to mention the insanely top-heavy structure of US businesses, but thats another conversation). The sheer amount of cost(both for the insurance and the staff to administer it) about nullifies the cost advantages US workers have over European workers(who have higher taxes associated with them, but no health insurance), and makes Canadian workers look extremely attractive(health insurance is covered, but unlike Europeans they can actually be fired without spending massive amounts of time and money filling out pointless paperwork to get rid of a paperweight).
You've just not experienced it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That's what you get for caring, Bruce. If you'd just practiced more neglect, everything would have turned out fine.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Although, the last time I disagreed with Bruce he was 100% correct in his prediction. Hmm... I know who I would believe if I wasn't me.
Re:You've just not experienced it (Score:4, Insightful)
Insulting others, just makes you look bad. And insulting others that insult others, only drags yourself to their level.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a case of the insurer solely looking at the procedure code and not at the actual diagnosis. Your family physician has to associate a procedural code with a charge in order to be reimbursed for the test. The insurance industry looks at the procedural codes with the idea that if you were tested for a serious condition, the doctor may have felt that you have a predisposition for that serious condition. I think this practice is flawed in logic and morally wrong. A physician is less likely to perform a t
Re:You've just not experienced it (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, I'm for the public option. I am having a lot of trouble reconciling the responsibility of a private medical coverage firm to its stockholders vs. its responsibility to the public. We don't have very many for-profit fire departments in the United States any longer, although that was once the norm. Wonder why?
Re:Insurance is for risks, not certainties (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately people are not free to opt out of getting ill or injured; these are simply facts of life, unfortunately, and there are unavoidable associated expenses.
Sure, a healthy lifestyle reduces the risk to some degree, and a "fat tax" on obesity might be justified. The same logic also leads to an "adrenaline tax" for thrill-seekers, a "bachelor tax" since married people are
Re:Insurance is for risks, not certainties (Score:5, Insightful)
Scenario:
* Kid has tiny routine temporary infection. It's resolved.
* Parent wants to insure kid, wife, self, against costs of broken arms, car accidents, heart attacks, etc.
* Insurance company goes on data mining expedition, sees tiny temporary infection in past, denies whole family coverage for all health issues.
Now do you see the fallacy in your argument?
Re:Holy shit? (Score:5, Insightful)
About Health Insurance in the US it isn't paranoid. They ARE out to get you.
Re:Holy shit? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Paranoid?
Hardly - greedy, most likely..
Hey - wanna buy a DVD with 2000 folk's heart rate records over 3 years, names with addresses and all?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually no, I don't. I was recalling from my own experiences from when I was a kid and since. I stand corrected! Thanks for setting me straight. :)
Re:Holy shit? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I worked at an alternative school where one of our students DID have a peanut allergy -- severe enough where just smelling peanuts from someone who walked by eating a PB&J was enough to set off an allergic reaction.
While we didn't outright ban peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, there was a fairly large portion of the campus designated as a 'peanut-free zone'. But this was at a school that had a large amount of parent involvement (and thus parents supervising their own kids.) I can certainly imagine a
Re:Holy shit? (Score:4, Insightful)
I can certainly imagine a regular public school banning PB&J sandwiches to avoid causing a reaction if someone with extreme peanut allergies was in attendance.
You know what? The world is never going to accommodate this level of extremeness. If someone really has this extreme a sensitivity to an everyday item, it's not the of everyone else around you to adjust their behavior to accommodate them.
Let's say you can somehow get away with this in school. What happens the rest of the kids life when they might walk by someone eating peanuts? Last I heard there were treatments that can reduce peanut allergy sensitivity down the level where even extremely sensitive people could get to the level where they can tolerate eating small amounts of peanuts. I guess I also have my doubts that merely SMELLING peanuts is actually dangerous for certain people, and not merely a purely psychological reaction brought on by nutty parents.
Paranoid (Score:5, Insightful)
They're probably just going to monitor heart rate to optimize aerobic exercise. At a certain point if your heart is beating too fast you'll end up in anaerobic mode.
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4736 [americanheart.org]
Re:Paranoid (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Paranoid (Score:5, Insightful)
Paranoia, yes, but on who's part?
Surely the school didn't purchase a bunch of new heart monitors because it might improve the calorie-burning of their students. Most likely what happened was that some kid presented with a previously-undetected heart defect and the school got sued. Now they're instating this to make sure that if someone else comes in with a funky rhythm, they can be taken to the hospital or allowed to rest as needed.
On an even more paranoid note, wouldn't the presence of these heart monitors open them up for these lawsuits to begin with? "Well, Johnny was WEARING a heart monitor when his heart stopped! The doctors said that there was probably some kind of variation in the heart's rhythm, and the school didn't detect OR treat it until it was too late! They LET our child die!"
Re:Paranoid (Score:5, Informative)
If only this is what a capability of the heart rate, it could make sense. You are thinking something like an EKG/EEG. A heart rate monitor that they are most likely referring to would be something like one sold by http://www.polarusa.com/us-en/ [polarusa.com] where the basic model just tells you your current heart rate. Nothing about detecting rhythm, etc. Its just how many beats/minute your heart is pumping.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Surely the school didn't purchase a bunch of new heart monitors because it might improve the calorie-burning of their students.
Why not? The school probably already spends tens of thousands on gym equipment, and tens of thousands more on volountary after school sports. What's a hundred simple heart rate monitors at a bulk rate? A few hundred bucks for something that has been shown to improve the quality of excersise should be a no brainer.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you haven't been paying attention this summer -- fat people are the new terrorists. It seems a lot more plausible to me that a school is implementing a weight control plan than that they're expecting a gym teacher to diagnose cardiac abnormalities with a heart rate monitor, something a cardiologist couldn't do usefully.
Thinking this over some more, though, I'm more sympathetic to
Paranoia on your part? (Score:3, Informative)
Heart rate monitors cannot detect heart defects. They're simple pieces of athletic equipment that are used to get good aerobic exercise. I think it's great that PE is introducing kids to the concept.
One of the signs of paranoia is a tendency to spin fanciful tales off the slimmest of evidence...it's not to look up what these things are if you're not familiar.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Paranoia, yes, but on who's part?
...Now they're instating this to make sure that if someone else comes in with a funky rhythm...
If someone comes in with a funky rhythm, the school should encourage them to listen to some James Brown or Parliament Funkadelic so that they can get that shit down right.
Re:Paranoid (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Likely it's identical to the device that comes with/works with some treadmills. It detects BPM (beats per minute) and that's pretty much it. That's about all the data that's useful for pure exercise monitoring anyway. If this is a public middle school and they're just asking you to buy the strap and not the device, then that's likely the most sophisticated they could afford, even if there was 'evil' motivations behind it. Seen physical education budgets lately?
So yeah, just a little paranoid...
Re:Well (Score:4, Insightful)
And if your child DOES have heart problems, sooner or later he or she will need to see a physician, who will be sure to inform the insurance company of the condition.
Seeing a doctor may also have the side effect of saving their life if they do have an arrhythmia. Having the opportunity to get health insurance later does them no good if they drop dead due to a treatable heart condition first.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And it almost certainly won't be tied to individual kids anyway. It takes a more expensive strap than they'll have you buy to have two work in close proximity, and in any case the transmit range is feet. They'll probably pass around one non-logging receiver. The only reason to have them buy their own strap is the sanitary issue. I wonder if they'll bother with the recommended conductive gel nobody actually uses? I can just picture being the gym teacher trying to deal with the social issues of gettin
Troll? (Score:5, Insightful)
This would be a pretty good troll posting. Nicely done, if so.
You're just being paranoid (Score:4, Funny)
Re:You're just being paranoid (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Except that they are an educational institution and thus subject to FERPA rules, which also prohibit disclosure of health information to third parties.
Topper (Score:4, Funny)
That's nothing!!!111
My kid was drugged and kidnapped, then had an explosive collar put around their neck, and dumped on an Island for a battle to the death.
Also, I think you're over reacting
Re: (Score:3)
Proactive defense from lawsuit (Score:3, Interesting)
If your child has heart problems, the device will alert staff. Or, they could be like this guy and be on trial for manslaughter.
http://www.wkyt.com/home/headlines/57036257.html [wkyt.com]
Lots of others like him too. They probably just want to avoid lawsuits.
There is a serious concern here (Score:4, Interesting)
You had a good reason to consult the principal, if you don't get assurances in writing I wouldn't suggest that you allow the device to be used on your child.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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People don't die from being pushed too hard in gym class. They die from other reasons. The heart rate monitor is not a safety device.
Paranoid (Score:5, Insightful)
I vote paranoid. In all the places I've heard of this used its only used as a way for the students to collect their own information and to monitor themselves and their own heart rate. These devices are generally only heart rate monitors, in no way are they designed to notice an arrhythmia, and I've never heard of the data being collected in any way. Besides since they've asked you to purchase the equipment, you would be better able to know exactly what the capabilities of the model you were asked to buy then a bunch of random Slashdotters. Stop reading the site and do some research.
Heart Rate testing in middle school... (Score:4, Informative)
A HRM is a really REALLY valuable exercise aid.. (Score:4, Insightful)
A heart rate monitor is an incredibly valuable exercise aid.
You want to keep your heart going fast, but not TOO fast. Especially when coupled with treadmills and similar devices, you can stay in the target heart rate zone automatically as the device adjusts the load.
Likewise, its very useful in combination with a GPS-based bicycle computer: it really allows you to see where you are strong, where you are pushing yourself TOO hard, and when you really need to go harder.
Also, exercise heart-rate monitors aren't THAT precise: you can detect a gross abnormality like atrial fibrilation, but nothing subtle.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The heart rate monitor is actually a fun thing to have.
I usually only wear it when I'm on my bike, and I do find it quite fun to see just for how long I can keep my heart rate at 170+, 175+ and 180+. I'm 32, so my target should really be around 160, but I'm still in really bad shape, so I'm constantly above that if I want to feel like I'm doing something.
But when I started this back in June I could hit a peak of about 180 for maybe a minute before I'd feel like I was dying, and now I can hold 180+ for sever
holy stupid, batman (Score:5, Insightful)
This is beyond tinfoil. This is the among the stupidest things I've ever read as an ask slashdot. It just goes to show that parental instincts can turn intelligent humans into frightened, protective, stupid animals.
Submitter: A heart rate monitor is just a more accurate way of measuring someone's pulse. Have you ever exercised in your life? Did you put your fingers to your neck to check your pulse? This is the same thing, but with more accurate reading. And it beeps if your heart rate gets too high so you know to slow down.
Do some damn research and try to collect your brains back into your skull. The big scary world isn't trying to ruin your little darling by checking his pulse.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no computer saving the data when I check my pulse with my finger.
Side discussion into healthcare (Score:4, Interesting)
Paranoid (Score:5, Funny)
There is a secret device in there that is using WiFi (with it's own cancer-causing radio waves, too) to communicate directly to Obama's death panels in the (former) white house. They are still perfecting the reverse control that can kill your kid right on the spot the moment they figure out his health care will be too expensive, so I would really watch out if they insist on updating the device! Fortunately a tin foil hat pressed firmly around the kids head will stop the transmissions, and for extra security you can also get a surgeon to implant tin foil wrapped right around the kid's heart, too.
Seriously, this is obviously a heart-rate monitor like those in treadmills to measure the quality of aerobic exercise.
Its ok, relax (Score:3, Informative)
I appreciate your concern, but honestly it's nothing to be worried about, millions of people around the world use heart rate monitors without any issue. I actually have to give kudos to your kids' school as well. Learning about proper anerobic/aerobic zones is pretty important when it comes to exercise. Further, be glad they're having your child purchase the strap, as opposed to using someone else's which could lead to ringworm, and a bunch of other gross fungal problems.
You think THIS is bad (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, you are paranoid (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't think you have cause for concern here (Score:3, Insightful)
Not spending much time in gyms, are you? (Score:5, Insightful)
From the comments, I suspect that most Slashdot readers don't spend much time in gyms.
Heart rate monitors are very useful. They tell you what resistance level you should be using on the cardio machines. Some of the fancier cardio machines read your heart rate and automatically adjust the resistance level to keep your heart rate in the training zone.
Great for obese kids. And adults. It fine-tunes their workout to a level they can handle while preventing goofing off.
If the school is really doing that, good for them. They're doing it right.
You seriously couldn't Google it? Troll feeding. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is very much like being worried because your kid is taking trig, and the teachers were using dependable, hand-crafted slide rules, but decided to end that and switch to programmable calculators with memory, and ZOMG it could remember all your kids math mistakes and thus rule them out of future employment!
You can see where that sentence went silly right? Right about the point where you became afraid of any change, anything at all, that you were completely ignorant about. Ask Slashdot? Really? Ask the fscking gym teacher first.
Your choice. Be reasonable and talk to the teacher, or assume the gummint is out to get you, but you won't home school, so you'll just have to send your kid into school with a gun. Either should solve your problem. One would be very amusing, and you should post the story to Slashdot telling us what happens next.
--
Toro
YES (Score:4, Funny)
You are being paranoid and it troubles me greatly that your retarded ass reproduced.
Re:Invest in a tinfoil hat for yourself (Score:5, Funny)
And homeschool. Unless you know about the government mind control devices implanted in all books. No-schooling is the safest. What the kids don't know can't hurt them. Plus with all their free time they can start digging and pouring cement to prepare for the invasion of the mole-men.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The straps go around the chest.
The chest of a middle schooler.
A sweaty, pubescent middle schooler.
Running around in the hot sun.
Who is only beginning to understand about the need for personal hygiene.
Yeah. I don't want to keep a collection of those in the same building I work in either. Ew. I think that's an OSHA violation or something.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a way to more accurately and effectively do physical education, nothing more.
"Seriously, you need to save your country."
Yeah, well we're working on it. Just some cronies left over from the previous administration are fighting us.
"And the fact that they might be doing this just to avoid lawsuits is every more disturbing"
I doubt that's the case. Everytine someone wants to do something mew, poeple on slashdot scream it due to lawsuits!!! when is seldom is.
"Silly lawsuits,:
Most aren't, and by most I mea
"Insightful" my ass (Score:3, Insightful)
is to remove manditory PE from the schools. Use it as time to learn music, or have a out of class work for an hour to help kids deal with homework.
Here is the thing:
30 minutes of half hearted PE exercise in a gym where you mostly goof off really doesn't provide anything. If the child isn't getting exercise at home and learning proper diets then this isn't going to help them.
Use the money for PE top provide a healthy lunch. No more pizza and cheap hot dogs.
Kids that are inclined to exercise will play at home. Many kids do not get an opportunity to learn music in the home, and just learning to play a little each day stimulates the brain.
no, I do not play music, but I wish all the effort schools spent to get me to wear shorts and sweat had been put into making learn an instrument..any instrument
Mother of god, so much stupidity crammed into a single post I hardly know where to start.
Oh that's a great idea. Just when the obesity epidemic couldn't get much worse, let's drop the one chance many people get to burn a few transfats just because one fatass wanted to learn more music. (Hint: if you regret that you didn't learn how to play an instrument, why don't you just go and learn how to play an instrument?)
OMG, I can't believe that A I just read
Re:It's quite obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
First, they graded people based on physical capabilities - who runs the fastest. This had the effect of failing the fat kid.
Then, they graded them based on personal achievement - who has improved their running times the most. This had the effect of failing someone who put in their full effort the first time.
Then, they graded them based on stamina - who made it through the full two miles. This had the effect of failing whoever had the least muscle mass and most weight to carry - again, the fat kid.
Now, their idea may be to grade them based on who raises their heart rate to a specified level - the idea being that this is a more even distribution of effort even if it takes the athletic kid five times as much distance as the fat kid.
Personally, I don't see why we need to grade a bloody PE class.