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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."
Are people really this paranoid?
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
This would be a pretty good troll posting. Nicely done, if so.
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E pluribus sanguinem
It's a fucking middle school.
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.
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...
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.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
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.
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Why? So even less money is actually used on education?
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You're debating over the "privacy issues" or whatever.
Have you never stopped to wonder how stupidly ridiculous it is to ask a child to use heart monitors while performing basic physical activities? Soon they'll be outlawing sports for kids altogether as they raise the chance of physical injuries or whatever.
And the fact that they might be doing this just to avoid lawsuits is every more disturbing. American society is still one of the greatest around - and I'm not an American - but it seems it's clearly entering a downward-spiral these days. Silly lawsuits, silly laws, "intellectual property", GPS-tracked mileage taxes.
Seriously, you need to save your country.
By the way, I'm sorry that most of the folks who have posted so far are unsympathetic and unthinking creeps. It's your job to watch out for your child, and such thinking is hardly paranoid.
Bruce Perens.
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.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
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
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"They don't teach you crap!" ---- As opposed to my younger sister's experience where she takes written tests in gym class? I was always under the impression that gym class existed in order to ensure that as we grow up we are making good habits in using our bodies-- not knowing the ins and outs of every retarded sport the world has come up with. (American football, anyone?)
Personally, I never had much use for the class. I don't really care to learn how to play basketball, soccer, "football". I prefer biking, kayaking, climbing, etc. as enjoyable ways to maintain a healthy body. The administration never seemed to understand that pre-college though.
I can't see any reasonable reason to be monitoring students' heart rate either-- Whatever their supposed purpose is, it only is a detriment to the ability of the gym class instructor to do their job-- and at worst will leave that individual (or group of people) even more lazy about their jobs.
I'd rather have incentives for people to work harder and do a better job than using technology to be lazy.
Have you ever been rejected for family medical coverage because your child had a urinary infection once, and a test to make sure it wasn't serious? I have.
Bruce Perens.
Particularly since if we did have government run health care, no one would be denied. You should be more worried that we don't get a health care bill passes and some how insurance companies would get this data. Then they would for sure not cover your child since it had a pre-existing condition.
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It's no big deal. You're insane.
The idea behind this is to teach kids about their target heart rate. You do a couple of math problems to figure it out and the device beeps when your heart is beating fast enough. It's to teach kids how hard they have to work out. If you're walking around casually its not fast enough.
These are the same things you can buy if you want to go jogging.
You're paranoid, and nuts. Do you really think the gym teacher's handwritten notes about how long your kid is in his target heart
On the practical side, schools don't have any money for the necessities, so I doubt they'd spend any money on equipment to log heart rates of individuals. They're likely just going to use it to optimize physical training for each kid as much as possible. Look on the bright side: if your kid learns now to use a heart rate monitor, he might use one later in life for regular exercise and be overall healthier.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Isn't the purpose of a School to TEACH???
When it comes to monitoring heart rates in Gym Class, there are two ways to go about this
1) Teach them to take their own pulse, and they can learn a valuable skill to be used anytime
or
2) Use Heart Rate Monitors, therefore teaching the students to be peons to the capitalistic sale of gadgets that are only useful when they are present and work
I love gadgets as much as the next geek here on slashdot, but come on... without basic knowledge, how will the next generation be able to function without these tools.
.... this is as bad as the match classes that now teach use of a calculator, as opposed to teaching MATH
My kids school is doing the same thing. The results aren't computerized or anything, they just check the kids heart rates to make sure that they really are getting the workout that they are expected to get. Different kids have different fitness levels. You can have two kids trailing the pack when running. One is working his butt off and has a good heart rate, and the other one is fit, but totally slacking. The heart rate would show the difference. My kids school just uses the heart rates to make sure that the kids aren't being lazy. Although I do have my paranoid side to me (who among us geeks doesn't?), this isn't likely to be anything to be paranoid about.
From what I understand, this is getting to be the new thing. PE is finally catching up with the times and using technology to make it more effective. Whodda thunk it?
Well, he didn't have an existing illness. But you have just explained, pretty well, why insurance companies should not be allowed to be involved in individual medical coverage. Because it's not in their interest to cover sick people! I hope all of the folks who are against the public option get for-profit fire departments in their towns.
Bruce Perens.
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.
A heart rate monitor, or a person measuring the pulse with his finger and a watch after a 2-step test, measure a figure that is of potential interest to a party which wishes to use information to filter to whom medical coverage will be offered. The difference between electronic and manual is that electronic records are made automatically, in a medium that is extremely easy to transmit.
Bruce Perens.
Heart rate monitors are highly overrated.
You can feel how hard you're working out without one (it's basic homeostasis -- any animal with a circulatory system can sense and react to its level of exertion), and if you're really curious you can put your finger on your neck for 15 seconds. The goal of an aerobic workout is to exercise at a moderate level. If you feel like you're going to collapse, you're working too hard. If you don't feel anything afterward, then it wasn't hard enough. Your body is generally very good at telling you how it feels, probably because our species would have died out immediately after evolving if it lacked that capacity.
Heart rate monitors are just another way to separate people from their money in a gadget-obsessed, health-obsessed, society full of people insufficiently trained in critical thinking and psychologically primed by millions of years of evolution to believe whatever testimonial might drop on them from a perceived point of authority -- be it human or machine. And once a monitor has been purchased the user is even more likely to testify to the device's indispensable nature because failing to do so would be admitting the buyer got taken for a ride, and any improvement in fitness will inevitably be attributed to the monitor in spite of the essentially perfect likelihood that the same improvement would have happened anyway.
That's without even getting in to the voodoo of optimum heart rate which has only a rough observational basis from statistical analysis of large groups.
This is a seventh grade gym class for Christ's sake.
There are uses for heart rate monitors in clinical settings, but probably not much use in seventh grade gym class. I'd certainly be pissed if my kid's middle school made me go buy one since, as discussed above, they are unnecessary, at least of little utility or value, cost scarce money that could be spent on something that is useful, distract from the exercise itself, and perpetuate the heart rate monitor industry by erroneously teaching kids that the monitor are useful and really matter.
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.
Bruce Perens.
What the fuck are you babbling about?
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.
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?
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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 that, and B you got modded Insightful. Here's a question, what about those who are not inclined to exercise? What do you suggest we do for them? Annual liposuction? What about those who aren't inclined to exercise now but would be more inclined to if they learn an appreciation for sport in school? Would you prefer them to become diabetic pianists? What about those who are inclined to exercise? Would you prefer to deprive them of a shot at some athletic enjoyment during their school years?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
I bet they were happy to insure you against the risk of future illness when they found out they weren't being treated like a charity.
You apparently have the fire department confused with fire insurance, but...
There are plenty of places with private fire departments. You pay their annual fee, then they'll put your house fire out. If you haven't paid, they come out to your house but they don't put out the fire unless it threatens the neighbors who paid.
It's a great, voluntary system of free people engaged in helping their neighbors and communities. There's no politics involved and no one is forced to pay against his will.
To some of us who value freedom, that's a feature.
Asking to buy health insurance when you're sick is like asking to buy car insurance after you've already wrecked your car. If you want to have coverage, you must begin paying for it before you need it. By the way, I'm certain that there are abuses that go on in the insurance industry, but if you want health insurance, the general idea is that you sign up for it before you need it.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
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
You're assuming that only medically useful data would be used to deny people access to health care. As I commented here, my entire family was rejected for coverage because my child once had a VCUG test. That illustrates the problem pretty well, IMO: not medically useful, used to discriminate.
Bruce Perens.
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 generally more healthy (having less fun?)... but these are just differences of degree - choices do not eliminate risk. And ultimately everybody dies, which is usually expensive.
Perhaps as a stoic libertarian, your plan is to forego treatment and die of a curable illness. That's not a workable public policy. People actually faced with that situation do not go down with the ship, what they do is receive treatment and then declare bankruptcy. They are freeloaders.
Heart rate monitors monitor -- guess what -- heart rate. Heart rate is how often your heart beats per minutes. For optimal training, heart rate should be kept in a particular (age-dependent) range. That's completely normal training procedure: almost every piece of aerobic exercise equipment at health clubs supports it.
Be happy that your school is teaching your kids something about modern fitness, since you obviously aren't able to teach them.
They drop out of the various negotiated-price private health insurance schemes, and for the same reasons.
Sure they do. I know of a few specific cases myself. In such cases though, you have other options (insurance companies, paying cash, out of network partial reimbursement, etc). If the government performs a complete take over- and that's the eventuality once we start, because that's the only way the math will work out- then you won't have other options.
Well, you will have other options- you'll be able to pay cash to see a doctor, a current situation which you imply is a problem.
Hard choices often need to be made in the face of limited resources. Will you make those decisions, or will the government?
Next time you go to the doctor, ask about their cash prices for various services. Think about how many you could pay for out of pocket if you had too. What common expenses would you be willing to give up to address those problems, if you had to? Eating out? Your cable tv/internet connection? Would you put off a computer upgrade? Sell the shiny new car and drive a beater?
Do you think you should never have to make those decisions in order to satisfy your medical needs?
Once you answer these questions, that will give you an idea of what sort of financial thresh hold you have, above which you would need insurance.
The public debate should reflect these sorts of questions. It doesn't.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
This is not at all a "would I have to give up ice cream" sort of situation.
Bruce Perens.
I'm sure you're fed up of hearing it by now, but... worrying about knowing about health conditions out of fear that it will be used against you means your health-care system is broken, not that you shouldn't check your heart rate. Please don't construe this as coming down on one side or the other of US politics; I, as an englishman, honestly cannot fathom how a system that deprives people of poor health from care is acceptable.
To the OP, if you're so worried about this, get the kid a heart rate monitor yourself, and teach him about optimal heart rates for exercise.
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.
People in Soviet Russia, however, appear to be afflicted with amusing juxtapositions of the aforementioned situation
I miss being a libertarian, because the world was so much simpler. Government=bad. Business=freedom. But the entire libertarian viewpoint (capitalize it or not, your choice) is basically blind to any abuse of power that is motivated by financial profit. They correctly see the dangers in government power, but non-government coercion, especially when money is involved, doesn't even register. I had to break with it because I felt that I was achieving clarity at the expense of ignoring what was right before my eyes.
Related to the story, I'd guess the heart monitors in question are pulse monitors, not cardiac monitors that give you an EKG reading.
We need PE because, if you haven't noticed, even young children in the USA are disgusting fat asses. It is unhealthy, it is costly to society, and it is a reflection on self control and self respect.
Blar.