OCEANSIDE -- Listening to Latino pop as they went through their step exercises, a group of 13 women valiantly tried to keep up with their fitness instructor last week despite interruptions from their young children.

The fitness class, held at the Chavez Center in Balderrama Park, is designed to teach health and nutrition to Latino women who have recently immigrated to the United States, said Concha Hernandez-Greene, the community assistant at the center.

Hernandez-Greene said this is especially important because Hispanic-Americans have a high rate of health problems due to poor exercise and eating habits.

"It's hard to change if you've been cooking in a certain way all your life," Hernandez-Greene said. "But it's important that we do change because diabetes is running rampant in our race."

Held mornings every Monday through Friday, the class, which is run on a tight budget, utilizes metal pull-out chairs and other everyday items as workout equipment. The women also play basketball Tuesday mornings.

North County Health Services comes to the center on the third Thursday of every month to hold nutrition classes for the women, Hernandez-Greene said.

When the aerobics class first started eight years ago, it mainly consisted of the students following exercise tapes. Many of the women bought their own equipment such as mats and weights, Hernandez-Greene said. However, about a year ago, the class got its own aerobic instructor.

Under the tutelage of fitness instructor Cathy Hernandez, who previously worked as an exercise instructor in Mexico, the students seem to have become fitter and happier, Hernandez-Greene said.

Hernandez's husband, who is a carpenter, made special wooden boxes for the class so the women could do step aerobics.

"They have more energy now, they've lost weight and their self-esteem has gone up," Hernandez said in Spanish.

Hernandez decided to take over the class after attending it herself, because she could tell the women needed more direction, she said.

Student Martha Ortega, 24, said she started attending the class six years ago with the hope of losing weight from her first pregnancy. Ortega said having an instructor produces a much better effect.

"It's better with Cathy -- she tells us how to do exercises, and we are losing more weight with her," Ortega said.

Nutrition lessons she received in the class have also helped Ortega to understand healthy eating and how to make nutritious meals for her and her family. In addition to what the ladies learn in class, Ortega said, she gets the added benefit of meeting with her friends daily and has been able to improve her English.

"When you go to another country and don't know anything it's very troubling," Hernandez-Greene said of the aerobics students. "They just absorb all this learning, and it's just great."

Hernandez-Greene said she recently applied for a $5,000 grant from the Billy Jean King Foundation. She said if the program receives the grant she hopes to take the women on field trips to health-food stores and local swimming pools.

She also hopes to start teaching them softball. Hernandez-Greene said the money will spice the class up a bit. Otherwise, she feels the class is fine on its own.

"I'm so proud of them -- they are doing it on their own with no budget from anywhere," Hernandez-Greene said.