LEWISTON – Eighth-graders Kristie Barter and Saba Naji leap-frogged over each other Thursday until they reached a table with plastic food. They grabbed the food and leap-frogged back to a group of students.

Two boys then completed their food relay while doing a lateral slide.

At the end of the exercise, the students had to place their food on a chart identifying which food group it belonged to.

The exercise was part of a national event called Game On! designed to combine nutritional health and gym exercise with games. About half of the middle school students, the only group in Maine to participate, took part in the program.

The event was sponsored by a nonprofit group, Action for Healthy Kids, as well as volunteer health professionals, educators and parents, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Across the field on Thursday, physical education teacher Coyne Turcotte’s students played a kind of flag-tag game, illustrating how the body takes in and burns off calories.

Elsewhere on the field, phys-ed teacher Kim Russell’s students played triple pass and score. “It’s basically a little football game, no tackling,” she said. Every time a student caught the ball, they called out a healthy snack before making a pass. If they called out an unhealthy snack, they lost possession of the ball, Russell said. “It gets them thinking about fruits and vegetables.”

‘Much funner’

Maine’s first lady, Karen Baldacci, watched from the sidelines.

“Being a dietitian, I had to come,” she said.

After students finished the activities, they were treated to spring water, cheese and apples.

“We’re trying to connect the link between physical activity and nutrition. This combines both,” Baldacci said. “It’s making them more aware, empowering them to be responsible for their own health.”

The students would normally have been in health or gym classes. “This is much funner,” said eighth-grader Chelsea Graffam.

At the other end of the field, students put on belts with flags and divided into two groups. One side represented “energy in” (food consumed). The other side was “energy out” (calories burned).

“Your body is like a machine. It needs fuel to run,” gym teacher Turcotte explained. “You put good fuel into it and the right amount, it’s going to run properly. You put bad fuel in it, or no fuel, it’s going to run like my car, not very well.”

What happens to the body when we eat more food than we burn off? he asked.

“You get fat,” several students answered.

Obesity is a leading health problem in the country, Turcotte said. “It leads to what illnesses?”

Students knew the answer to that, too.

“Heart disease. Diabetes. Cancer.”