"Have you guys been training at home?" Omenson shouted over the music. "Awesome."
And they were - girls who'd like to lose a few and skinny boys, all doing things they couldn't have done a month before.
They're charter members of the HiFive Club, Triton Regional High School's month-old after-school activity aimed at winning students, including the formerly sedentary, over to a healthier lifestyle.
The need is no secret. Childhood obesity is at epidemic proportions. For the last year, Michelle Obama has been exhorting young people to eat healthier and get active through her Let's Move! campaign.
The idea seems to be catching on. In the last year, growing numbers of initiatives have been launched to bring healthier foods into school lunches, take junk food out of machines, and get kids exercising more. On Feb. 1, for instance, Let's Move in School, sponsored by the 20,000-member American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, announced an effort to spur physical activity before, during, and after school.
Omenson and history teacher Candace Vrooman saw the problem in their students, teenagers who got winded walking up a flight of stairs of their Runnemede school.
"I'm 44, and I beat them all up the steps," said Omenson, who teaches photography and computer graphics.
But the teachers were concerned, not judgmental.
"Basically, I was a shy, fat kid in high school," said Omenson, a Cherry Hill East graduate. "I hated gym, and it hated me."
At 25, she signed up for Jenny Craig and joined a gym. "I thought kids should be able to experience personal fitness sooner than that," she said.
Vrooman, 26, a Triton alumna, had been a high school athlete but petered out in college. After the death of an overweight aunt, she began running with Omenson.
