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"In October, 50 students from Rippon Middle School were selected to participate in “Live Positively: Get the Ball Rolling,” an initiative spearheaded by Coca-Cola to fight obesity among children. In the Washington, D.C. area, Coca-Cola has partnered with the Washington Capitals, Washington Mystics, Washington Nationals, Washington Redskins, and Washington Wizards to promote active, healthy lifestyles.
The chosen students took a field trip to the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. They were among only 150 students selected to participate in this fitness clinic, and the only Virginia representatives to be chosen for this day filled with healthy activities. Four clinics took place in October as part of this initiative, with the Washington Wizards and Washington Mystics hosting the clinic the Rippon Middle School students attended.
The event included exercise, basketball skills and drills, and nutritional discussions to achieve the goal of raising awareness about the importance of an active, healthy lifestyle, which includes daily exercise and making healthy choices for a balanced diet. Students met several Wizards and Mystics players as well as members of the organizations’ coaching staff who shared how to “play like pros and eat like pros.”
“The students took away information that can be used for a lifetime of living a healthy lifestyle. It was a wonderful day for our students,” shared Gail Stone, principal of Rippon Middle School." (PWCS web site)
(submitted by Margaret Goldberger, Prince William Health Partnership)
Staff have begun evaluating the first year of the HEAL Program. The Prince William Health Partnership has been supporting The Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAL) Program through a Kaiser Grant since 2008. The Partnership, in collaboration with Prince William 4H and the 3 area public school systems, Prince William County and the Cities of Manassas and Manassas Park, designed and implemented a HEAL Program for grades K-5.
A recent review shows that all 5 schools in the City of Manassas maintained their Silver Awards and 39 schools from Prince William County were placed on the Governor's Scorecard with 26 receiving Bronze and the 13 remaining schools receiving Silver or Gold. In 2009 only 5 elementary schools from PWC received such awards. Staff believe that the HEAL initiative contributed to this increase.
Keep up the great work!
To see the complete list of Winners Circle schools on the Healthy Virginians web site, click here.
To learn more about HEAL, click here.
Prince William County Public Schools announces a new program for parents and caregivers of young adolescent boys and girls. BodyWorks, developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Women’s Health, focuses on helping adolescents ages 9 to 13 and their families create healthier lifestyles.
The BodyWorks program focuses on parents as role models and provides them with the tools and support they need to create healthy lifestyles for their children. Parents who enroll in the BodyWorks program receive a BodyWorks toolkit and attend regular group meetings to help maintain behavior change. The toolkit serves as a guide to creating an overall health lifestyle. It includes a video on healthy shopping and cooking strategies, a recipe book, food and fitness journals, a weekly meal planner refrigerator magnet and more.
Beth Tomanek, Health and Physical Education Specialist and certified BodyWorks Trainer, states, “The Office of Health and Physical Education is excited to provide this educational program for our students and their families. It ties in with the School Division’s strategic plan goal of ‘The teaching, learning, and working environment is caring, safe and healthy, and values human diversity’.
“We believe that healthy teens become healthy adults,” says Jonelle Rowe, M.D., M.A., consultant of adolescent health for OWH. “BodyWorks teaches parents to be role models for their children and encourages them to establish better eating and activity habits for their families.”
For more information on the BodyWorks program contact Beth Tomanek, Office of Health and Physical Education, (703)791-8042 or email tomanekea@pwcs.edu.
9-5-2-1-0 for Health has been rolled out in the Arlington Public Schools! The nurses and clinic aides are doing activities in all of the schools to get out the 9-5-2-1-0 message. Nurses are teaching health classes, holding school wide contests, and creating bulletin board displays. Some nurses are getting out the message via the morning announcements and one nurse was filmed for a television broadcast. Some of the elementary schools had contests to see which class could bring in the most notes from the students parents verifying that they got 9 hours of sleep.
It has been a great success with a lot of interest from teachers, students, and families. Our health education committee will continue to emphasize the 9-5-2-1-0 message throughout this year as it has proven to be so successful. There are approximately 21,241 students in Arlington Public Schools. The campaign was presented in all of the elementary, middle, and high schools. We have been happy to be a part of this campaign.
( From: Karin Beecroft, MSN, RN, Acting School Health Supervisor, Teen Parenting/High Risk Prevention Programs, Arlington County DHS)
Woodburn School for the Fine and Communicative Arts in Fairfax County recently rolled out the 9-5-2-1-0 for Health message through their morning news show, passing out book marks, 9-5-2-1-0 teaching tips for classroom teachers, providing information on afternoon announcements, and singing the 9-5-2-1-0 song created to the tune of Camp Town Races with upper grade students.
During roll-out week, music teacher, Carrie Ragona, wrote another version of the 9-5-2-1-0 song to the tune of Bingo. This simple song works well with the younger students and helps them to remember 9-5-2-1-0 for Health. During the week the music teacher worked with students on both songs, one for the upper grades and one for the lower grades.
Click here to dowload the new song
Click here to see the 9-5-2-1-0 song to the tune of Camp Town Races.
