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Heart Monitors In Middle School Gym Class?
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."
I saw something similar in a school where I teach. A research project involving a group of children was asked to participate after parental permission and notification and consent were given, detailing the purpose of the project, asking for permission for blood samples and a complete physical given to the child free of charge. The students were awarded gift certificates and other free items such as calculators, CD carriers, and water bottles. The heart monitors were worn during gym class only, and the heart rates were compared prior to and after exercised to measure heart rate resting times. The data was tied to numbers, not names, and was stored that way, so there were no long term consequences of the test, and all information was shared with parents. If you have not given your permission for this testing, I would certainly be upset as a parent that you have not been given any information as to the use of the data, or the confidentiality of the data.
Because they're not a healthcare provider, if they acquire HIPAA protected information, they're not actually required to do anything in particular. They could leak it without consequences. They could use it maliciously. They could sell it.
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/ 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.
Private health insurance does that to a person. The system in the US is screwed up beyond all repair. For instance, if a company finds out that you or anyone in your immediate family has any medical problems that ends up being a HUGE strike against you. Legally they cannot ask such questions, but they have ways of finding out(from illegal but common searches to just seeing if you have any obvious health issues when you show up to the interview).
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).
Monstar L
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.
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.
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.
I'm a cardiologist; we use heart rate as a threshold when doing stress testing, but otherwise it has limited utility in measuring "exertion level." The Maximal Predicted Heart Rate [MPHR] was established in the late '60s as an observation, not a true prediction; a small sample of people was observed exercising to their subjective "maximum," and those rates were plotted. There was enormous variability; the slope of MPHR was simply the line of best fit from the scatterplot, and was estimated by the authors of the original article to likely be accurate within 30 points in either direction. A particular person's maximal heart rate is impossible to predict within any meaningful accuracy; obviously, the derived slope is even sloppy for large populations. There are many many "experts" with theories regarding what percentage of MPHR you should achieve and for how long in order to get aerobic benefit - there is almost no science on the subject. Currently in vogue (and to my eye, at least as reasonable as anything based on heart rate) is the Borg Scale of Perceived Exertion. Basically, work to a level where you consistently feel like you're exerting yourself - that's how you get feedback on your exertion level. For an excellent discussion of this, see Gina Kolata's book Ultimate Fitness (almost 10 years old, still well-researched and interesting). There's an enormous amount of misinformation and pseudoscience out there.
It is not the doing of things that is difficult. What is difficult is getting in the right mood to do them. ~~ Brancusi