From Sarah White, Partners in Prevention Fund Coordinator:
On January 12, 2012 we will be hosting a summit at George Mason University for clergy and faith community leaders in Northern Virginia.
The summit, called Healthy Eating and Active Living (HEAL) : A Call to Action for Faith Communities is intended to empower leaders of faith communities to address healthy eating and active living in the following
ways:
We will be holding our summit in the Johnson Center of George Mason University, and will have space available for exhibits and booths that will provide information to the clergy leaders on all aspects of
fighting obesity and encouraging healthy eating and active living.
We would like to extend the invitation to you to exhibit at our event. Space will be limited so please contact me as soon as possible for more information and to reserve a spot.
Contact information can be found below:
Sarah B. White
Partners in Prevention Fund Coordinator
Department of Neighborhood and Community Services
12011 Government Center Parkway, Suite 220.4 Fairfax, VA 22035
703-324-5648
sarah.white@fairfaxcounty.gov<mailto:sarah.white@fairfaxcounty.gov>
NVHK Coalition Co-Chairs presented the work of the coalition during the Weight of the State 2011 conference. Their session title was; "Advocate, Activate, Act! Lessons Learned from the Northern Virginia Healthy Kids Coalition."
In the picture on the right, Co-Chairs Margaret Goldberger and Sandy Thompson, along with Inova/NVHK staff member, Rhonda Richardson, are speaking with Dr. William Rees and Dr. Bob Shayne of the VA Chapter AAP following the NVHK session.
Manassas City Public Schools have developed a 95210 for Health™ Song set to the tune of "London Bridges Falling Down". You can listen to the song, sung by students, here.
“Get Movin’ Family Fun Day” had the ProJet Aviation hangar rocking on Saturday, Sept. 24, 2011. Hundreds of families came from the entire Northern Virginia and southern Maryland area to test the thesis that “Healthy exercise and healthy food can be fun.”
Rod Williams, Inova Health System vice president for community affairs, welcomed the crowd from the Disney Radio stage with those words.
“Developing healthy communities is what we are doing,” Williams said. “Inova has been working with the Mystics for more than a year and this is the first step in how we want to go into these communities and promote education, fitness and nutrition. We believe we have the right partner [in the Washington Mystics].”
Inova Health System and the Washington Mystics co-sponsored the event, and brought in Radio Disney to up the tempo. Also on deck were rock climbing, hoops, face painting, ground-level games and cooking demonstrations from Inova and Market Salamander chefs.
The Mystics and Inova teamed up earlier this year to cooperate across the region in promoting fitness, healthy life styles, and nutrition and to combat childhood obesity.
“What’s really nice about this event,” Leesburg Mayor Kristen Umstattd said, “is that Radio Disney has partnered with the Northern Virginia Coalition for Healthy Kids to try to boost healthy eating and healthy exercise for kids, to try to combat childhood obesity.”
With the combined health-power of Sheila Johnson and Inova, Umstattd said, “there’s a great coalition developing here in Northern Virginia to combat childhood obesity.”
Sandy Thompson, co-chair of NVHK, a four-year old grass roots enterprise dedicating to decreasing rates of childhood obesity, handed out her “95210” magnet: Healthy children will have nine hours of sleep a day, eat five serving of fruits and vegetables, spend no more than two hours in front of a screen, put in one hour of physical activity, and consume zero sugary snacks.
The coalition is reaching out to the business, school, recreation and faith communities, Thompson said, and is seeing some signs of success.
(excerpt from the LeesburgPatch, 9/27/11)
A $25,000 grant, from CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, enabled the NVHK Coalition to adapt/distribute 9-5-2-1-0 for Health™ toolkits to the Culmore Character Club Branch of the Fairfax Region Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Washington (BGCGW). Many of the youth served at BGCGW are at-risk to become overweight or obese. The toolkits will supplement the BGCGW current wellness activities through opportunities to engage in a variety of hands-on activities related to making healthy choices.
In August 2011, a pilot program was conducted at the Murraygate Village club during their summer camp program. A train-the-trainer approach was used to train staff and high school age members to properly use the toolkits with the elementary/middle school BGCGW members. The newly trained trainers will engage their peers and younger members in the toolkit activities. An afterschool program will be conducted at the branch’s three clubs starting mid-September 2011.
Sarah White, Program Manager for the Fairfax County Partners in Prevention Fund and NVHK Steering Committee member, recently recounted how she was motivated to initiate change towards healthier habits in the faith community:
On April 29, 2011 I attended the Let’s Move the Needle on Childhood Obesity Summit held at George Mason University. As a member of NVHK and Program Manager for the Fairfax County Partners in Prevention Fund, I was already well aware of the statistics around childhood obesity and the need for societal involvement in solving this problem. At another event, I had heard a speaker describe the mixed messages she receives about health and body image. Her background in nursing tells her one thing but her faith congregation encourages less healthy behavior at church sponsored functions. At the Let’s Move the Needle summit, I chose to attend the breakout section facilitated by Dr. Henry Brinton of Fairfax Presbyterian Church, which further examined the role religion can play in maintaining good health. For my call to action at the summit, I pledged to find a way to help make the faith communities become more aware of the obesity issue and how they can be agents for change.
To continue my pledge I convened a group of committed partners to consider how we could bring the various faith communities together to discuss this issue. As a result, we will be hosting a summit on January 12, 2012 for faith communities in Northern Virginia. The summit, currently being called “Healthy Eating and Active Living: A Call to Action for Faith Leaders”** will bring together clergy leaders from a wide variety of faith traditions.
The summit will be held at George Mason University, and the planning team for the event includes individuals from the Fairfax County Health Department, the Department of Neighborhood and Community Services Countywide Interfaith Coordinator’s Office, representatives from various faith communities and professors in Public Health, Nutrition and Public Policy from George Mason University. Sessions will focus on various topics such as:
It is our hope that faith leaders will leave the summit motivated, energized and equipped with resources and support to play a role in reducing the problem of obesity in our communities.
For more information, please contact Sarah White at sarah.white@fairfaxcounty.gov
**Currently just the working title; this has not been finalized
The September 2011 American Journal of Preventive Medicine Since 2005, restaurants, entertainment companies, and food and beverage industry trade groups have made only limited progress to market healthier foods and beverages to children and adolescents. Food and beverage companies have made moderate progress to improve their marketing standards, but no industry sector has made extensive progress compared with comprehensive recommendations issued by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 2005.
