Have You Taken the Challenge to Fight Childhood Obesity?

All of our programs are free to children!

It only costs 30 cents a day for a child to have a year of health and wellness.

Chronic Diseases directly and indirectly caused by Obesity.

Alzheimer’s & Vascular Dementia

Asthma & COPD

Breast Cancer

Chronic Back Pain

Correctol Cancer

Congestive Heart Failure

Coronary Heart Disease

Diabetes Type 2

Gall Bladder Disease

Heart Disease

Hypertension

Liver Cancer

Osteoarthritis

Ovarian Cancer

Pancreatic Cancer

Prostate Cancer

Renal Cancer

Stroke

Obesity accounts for 47% of the total cost of chronic diseases in America

Milken Institute Report 2018

The Problem

Childhood obesity and the lack of physical activity have reached epidemic proportions in the United States.  Here are some facts:

  • Only 30% of children are physically active every day.

  • Less than 50% of the time spent in sports practice, games, and physical education class involves moving enough to be considered physical activity.

  • Children and teens spend more than 7 hours per day on average using TVs, computers, phones, and other electronic devices for entertainment.

  • Only 9% of U.S. high school students get enough exercise to stay fit and healthy

  • About 30% of children are either overweight or have obesity in the United States

  • 60% of all adults have a chronic disease

  • The adult obesity rate has increased from 13% in 1962 to 40% in 2018

  • Overweight teens have a 70% chance of developing obesity as an adult

  • Obesity accounts for 47% of the total cost of chronic diseases in America

Pilot program achievements from the 2023-2025 academic years in the Boston area include:

  • A 92% increase in desired fitness and health outcomes

  • A 64% reduction in electronic device usage

  • A 78% decrease in obesity

  • A 45% increase in grades

Welcome to Top Secret Spartans

Who Are We?

Top Secret Spartans is part of the Top Secret Kids Corporation, a non profit organization, which was organized in 1995. Since that time the Top Secret Kids has been educating and entertaining children all around the world. We started with Top Secret Science and now have 250 affiliates in over 20 countries which have worked with over 40 million children. We offer numerous low cost and high value opportunities to support our mission of providing fantastic hands-on educational programs to children of all ages.  Overall, we work with over 1,000 local children in the Boston area each week.  In 2008 we added Top Secret Chefs and in 2017 we added Top Secret Spartans.

Fitness for Life

It’s our motto and should be yours too!  Are you looking for something new and fun to get your kids moving?  Do you want to provide educational opportunities where they can learn about their fitness and health? Then Top Secret Spartans is what you’re looking for!

Our youth fitness/wellness programs promote healthy choices and active lifestyles by combining PLAY, (think games, fitness activities, and fun movement) with EDUCATION. Each class will vary in games and activities to keep kids engaged and excited.  The class is designed and led by certified instructors who are trained to customize programs, teach lessons, work with K-8 students, and encourage collaboration among all participants. Our program is designed to improve their strength endurance, cardiorespiratory fitness, athletic abilities and overall wellbeing.  Our goal is to create POSITIVE & FUN learning experiences so kids walk away feeling their best – motivated and confident in their ability to move, build healthy habits, and take charge of their health.

Do you know who invented the Jumping Jack or the Burpee?

Only 20% of children are physically active each day

Why choose Top Secret Spartans?

We want to make fitness and health education as fun and easy as possible and create solutions to the above problems for both kids and their parents. We recognize that each school/organization have different needs, goals, and resources.  One size does not fit all when it comes to health and we believe the same for our program.  Whether you are looking for weekly classes or a one-day workshop, we will personally work with you to develop the optimal program for your school/organization. We treat each program with individual attention and customize our session to fit your situation in the following ways:

We provide trained, professional coaches.  All coaches have passed a background test and are certified fitness professionals. In addition, they go through our rigorous and ongoing training in curriculum development, education techniques, and crowd management strategies.

We collaborate.  To engage participants in the program, we structure our programs with age-appropriate play and education. Our founders work closely with the coaches, gathering feedback and fine tuning curriculum to ensure that each session becomes progressively tailored to the participants

We provide a low instructor-to-student Ratio.  To ensure individual safety and class quality, we provide one coach for every 10 students.

We are flexible.  We collaborate with the organization to determine the best schedule to accommodate the maximum number of participants.  We can organize indoor and outdoor onsite sessions to meet any space constraints an organizations may have.

We bring everything onsite.  We provide all equipment and materials for the sessions. If the organization wishes to use its own equipment to supplement the activities, our instructors can coordinate with school officials to use their equipment.

We have fun!  Top Secret Spartans believes having FUN is the key to success of the program. By combining education with play, we are committed to creating fun learning experiences that will increase intrinsic motivation and self-confidence.  Kids will also love our tee shirts, certificates, Spartan Trading Cards and Medals.

General Class/Workshop Structure

  • Warm Up. To engage the class, we devote the first portion of each session to interactive games that get kids up and moving. Sample warm ups include a fitness-focused approach. For new classes, we incorporate icebreakers to get kids interacting and learning about each other.

  • Education. We incorporate 1-3 mini-lessons about various wellness topics, such as facts about the human body, exercise, nutrition, and fitness. Sample education lessons include the relationships between physiology and specific exercises. We categorize our lessons under 3 broad themes:

    • FITNESS| Any topic that relates to the human body and exercise, including various types of exercise/training and how it impacts our health and fitness

    • NUTRITION| Encompasses topics from basic nutrition to the relationship between nutrition and fitness.

    • HEALTH| Includes wide-range of topics that relates to overall wellness such as energy balance, sleep, goal setting, and stress management.

  • Play.  Every mini-lesson is followed by a game that reinforces what they just learned. Depending on the length of the class, the number of games/activities will vary.

  • Review and Reflection. We devote 5 minutes at the end of each class to review and reflect upon the day’s lessons and activities, helping students better understand and develop strategies to apply their knowledge and skills into their daily lives.

  • Obstacle Course.  What could be more fun than to test those new skills with a fun obstacle course.  We look at strength, conditioning and balance and motivate each and every child to do their very best.  We top it off with certificates and medals for our Spartans!

Benefits

1.  Enhances an individual’s ability to concentrate and maintain focus:

Several studies show that performing physical activities helps in enlarging the basal ganglia of the brain. The Basal Ganglia is a part of the brain which is responsible to maintain an individual’s capability to focus. In this current era students have several diversions in the form of technologies (Television, tablets, PCs, cell phones), therefore, it is difficult for them to maintain focus. By promoting physical education, school teachers can help them improve their concentration. Schools often arrange physical games and exercises which require concentration. Thus, students are promoted to take part in such activities along with their school work, so this will help in maintaining their healthy body and minds.

2. Important for healthy growth and development:

In today’s world, many school children eat unhealthy foods. These may include the fries, soft drinks, pizzas and burgers. Consuming these on a regular basis can lead to childhood obesity.Physical education at school helps in preventing obesity and high blood pressure. Physical exercise and activities will help them burn off their extra calories. If these calories are not burned off they will be stored as fat. By doing physical exercises individuals use their extra calories to gain energy.Plus, such activities play an important role in the healthy growth and development of bones and cartilages. Bone strengthening exercises such as jumping are particularly important for school children as such activities produce a force onto the bone that helps enhance its strength and growth. While muscle strengthening exercises make muscles larger and stronger, they also help children carry more weight and aid in protecting joints against injuries.Being physically active makes the students energetic and strong which motivates them to take interest in classroom activities. Exercises which help strengthen muscles include activities like climbing trees, using monkey bars, bike riding, doing pushups and even hula hooping.A physically active student will also have a healthy heart. Any exercise which provides oxygen to the muscles is called as an aerobic exercise. Such exercises are essential for a healthy heart. Research shows that kids who perform aerobic exercises, two to three times a week for at least twenty minutes, have a healthier heart as compared to those who don’t take part in physical education. Some of the healthy aerobic exercises include activities like basketball, soccer, and jumping rope to name a few.

3. Prevents sleep deprivation:

A complete night’s sleep is an essential component of a happy and healthy life. Those students who take part in physical activities and exercise regularly have a tired and exhausted body which craves a good night’s sleep.  Complete sleep makes kids more upright and attentive during lectures in classroom. Being attentive will help prevent them from performing careless mistakes and will provide them energy to be helpful towards teachers and their fellow students.

Being physically active makes the students energetic and strong which motivates them to take interest in classroom activities. Exercises which help strengthen muscles include activities like climbing trees, using monkey bars, bike riding, doing pushups and even hula hooping.

4. Helps in relieving stress and anxiety:

School life is hectic for every individual. Therefore, taking part in physical activities and education allows students to relieve their academic stress and anxiety. Stress might be due to a fight with a friend or a low grade despite of hard work. Stressed students are not able to concentrate and focus on their academic performance if they are not allowed time to de-stress.

Physical activities give them an environment to breathe out their stress. By exercising and breathing deeply, we provide extra air to our lungs which in turn provides more oxygen to the brain, this makes the brain feel relaxed and stress free.

A physically active individual is more likely to be happy and healthy, which makes them a better student in the classroom. They often feel proud and happy about themselves and are good towards their fellow students.

5. Fitness makes an individual flexible and happy:

Balancing, exercise and stretching help improve physical balance which decreases the chances of injuries. Those students who make physical education as important as their school work become more flexible in their routine life. Such activities make the body elastic and flexible. It allows an individual to manage both a physical and mental workload.  Scientific research reveals the fact that physical education in school helps in improving the connections between neurons of the brain. Healthy and well-connected neurons help improve the over-all thinking ability of students.  This will ultimately make them better students in classroom.Many schools have made physical education an essential component of school curriculum and students are promoted to maintain a healthy balance between their education and exercise.  This is due to the fact that those students who take part in physical activities have proved to be happier and healthier than those students who spend all their time doing school education work.  Such activities help develop the blood circulation in an individual’s body.  This helps in providing more oxygen to the heart and brain and allows the body to maintain a balance between physical and mental health.