Girls on the Run encourages healthy body and mind
By Natalie Dicou, The Salt Lake Tribune (April 13, 2011)

(Djamila Grossman | The Salt Lake Tribune) St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School students and instructors run three miles as part of Girls on the Run. In the program, girls exercise and learn about maintaining a healthy body image and healthy self esteem. The 12-week program culminates with a 5K race.

Holladay - Whatever you do, don’t say anything gloomy or pessimistic about yourself in the presence of Beth Leo.

The St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School fifth-grader will call you out for your “negative self-talk.”

She’s one of 11 students participating in her school’s new Girls on the Run program, which teaches tween girls between the ages of 8 and 13 to stay positive about themselves and their bodies while training for a 5K race.

Beth’s mom, Mindy Leo, read about the positive, girl-empowering 12-week program in running magazines, and decided she wanted to start a chapter at her daughter’s school.

“At this young age, it’s important not to go into the Girl Box,” said Leo, noting the name the program uses for the clothes- and weight-obsessed world into which girls sometimes slip.

To keep girls out of the Girl Box, Leo and assistant coach Teresa Kranz meet with the tweens each Thursday after school for 12 weeks. They teach a curriculum of 24 lessons, including “Standing Up to Peer Pressure,” “Gossiping Hurts Everyone” and “Learning About Cooperation.”

The girls eat a healthy snack, stretch, warm up and then go for a jog.

“We’ve gradually gone from a 15-minute run to almost 45 minutes,” Leo said.

Girls on the Run, founded in 1996 in Charlotte, N.C., is growing rapidly. Last spring, there were seven site sin Salt Lake County.

This spring, there are 22, said Heidi Moreton, Girls on the Run Salt Lake County executive director. The program is funded by national partnerships with such companies as New Balance and Kellogg’s, grants, individual donations and fees.

“I love the way the program teaches them how to set and obtain a goal that’s pretty difficult for them,” Moreton said. “My hope for these girls is for them to take this goal and to apply it to other areas of their life.”

Leo has enjoyed seeing her daughter take the lessons to heart.

When Beth heard her grandma make a negative comment recently, “She said, ‘No, that’s negative self-talk. Don’t say that about yourself,’ ” Leo remembered. “I thought that was so cute.”

Beth said she has developed methods to thwart her own cynical self-talk.

“If I say ‘I can’t do it,’ then I think in my head, ‘No, I can do it,’ ” Beth said. “I have really liked [learning about] positive and negative self-talk. It’s helped me to be more positive with others and myself.”

Fellow fifth-grader Kate Kranz has enjoyed running and getting to know the other girls.

“We all get along really well, and we help each other out,” Kate said. “We’ll encourage each other, and if somebody gets hurt, we help.”

In preparation for the culminating event of the program, the Girls on the Run Spring 5K at Sugar House Park on May 14, the girls have been training hard.

“Our last lesson, we ran three miles,” Kate said. “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.”

Beth said a few of the girls were skeptical at first: Running is fun?

“Then they started thinking ‘this is really fun,’ ” she said. “I’m having a great time. It’s not just running. It’s games, it’s a lesson. It’s like running Girl Scouts.”

ndicou@sltrib.com

Photo courtesy of Djamila Grossman, The Salt Lake Tribune