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By Brooke Bunch
Community Service Programs recently became a partner in a
nationally recognized program which aims to encourage school
children to develop and maintain healthy lifestyles. In
combating the growing epidemic of childhood obesity, CSP is
offering training to local teachers and school staff Monday,
Sept. 27, and Tuesday, Sept. 28, on how to better educate
children and their families on the importance of proper
nutrition and exercise.
“The population is gaining
weight every year,” said Nancy Schell, program coordinator for
CSP.
“In the last 15 years, the number of obese children
has doubled.
Eighty-three percent of overweight children become overweight
adults. Obesity is leading to chronic disease among both
children and adults.”
Called CATCH
or Coordinated Approach to Child Health
Implementation Training,
the nationally recognized
program builds an alliance of parents, teachers, child nutrition
personnel, school staff and community partners to teach children
and their families how to be healthy and fit for life. The
program is funded by a Champion Grant from General Mills.
CATCH
training involves a hands-on workshop that blends the knowledge
and practical skills needed for strategic planning and
implementation. The training, along with program materials that
reinforce the rationale for improving children’s health, focuses
on four components of building healthier children: physical
education, health education in the classroom, school nutrition
services, and family education and activities.
“School administrators are realizing the importance of regular
physical activity and proper nutrition and how it affects
academic and behavioral outcomes. CATCH will provide
instruction designed to help schools and our communities make
sure we are enabling our kids to have healthy, long lives," said
Schell.
The CATCH program
has shown that school environments can be structured to promote
healthy behavioral changes in children. As published in the
Journal of the American Medical Association, CATCH
programming in schools helps to reduce the total fat and
saturated fat content of lunches, increases moderate-to-vigorous
physical activity during physical education classes and improves
students’ self-reported eating and physical activity.
The CATCH
curriculum has been used throughout the country and has been
implemented in 1,500 schools in Texas. The free workshop will
train school staff to successfully implement CATCH in
their school.
Schell invites classroom
teachers, food services managers, physical education teachers,
administrators, parents, school nurses and counselors to attend
the workshop.
“Children need adult role
models,” she said. “We need to teach adults how to be healthy
again.”
The workshop is being
coordinated by
CSP and the Athens City-County Health Department. For more
information about CATCH, visit their website at
www.catchtexas.org.
To register for the workshop,
please contact Nancy Schell at (740) 593-2293 or schelln@ohio.edu.
News for the week
of Sept. 13 – 18
News for the week
of Sept. 6 – 11
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