Congratulations to the students at Huntington, West Virginia’s Enslow Middle School for winning the national Fuel Up to Play 60 competition! As the national winner, Enslow wins a HOPS Sports System and a cafeteria makeover (valued at $40,000), which will help Enslow’s students make their improvements permanent. The students will also be featured on FuelUpToPlay60.com and NFLRush.com.
Students at schools across the country are taking action for their health, proving that small, yet significant improvements when it comes to eating healthy and getting active can be the first steps toward eliminating childhood obesity. More than 60,000 schools across America participated in the Fuel Up to Play 60 program, and students throughout the nation logged the healthy choices they were making for themselves and their school over the course of the year as part of an online challenge.
Fuel Up to Play 60 is a school wellness program launched by the National Football League and National Dairy Council (NDC) with support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA); it empowers students at schools like Enslow Middle School to get healthy and be active by implementing changes. Enslow students held a taste test to add healthy lunch options to their cafeteria and also started a walking club, which helped students incorporate more physical activity into their school day and to track their progress with a walking journal. Huntington is no exception when it comes to soaring rates of obesity among children, as one-third of all American children are overweight or obese.(1) But Enslow students have shown how a program like Fuel Up to Play 60 can help youth take small steps toward developing and maintaining lifelong healthy habits, with the goal of repeating the success seen in Huntington in communities all across America.
Efforts to implement a sweeping overhaul of school food in Huntington have received national attention, but students at Enslow Middle School found success on their own through their involvement with the Fuel Up to Play 60 program. By making manageable changes, students helped each other “fuel up” with nutrient-rich foods often missing from their diets – such as low-fat and fat-free dairy foods, fruits, vegetables and whole grains – and “play” for 60 minutes of physical activity every day.
As a private-public partnership effort, Fuel Up to Play 60 shares the ambitious yet attainable goals outlined in First Lady Michelle Obama’s childhood obesity platform “Let’s Move!” which aims to curb child obesity within a generation. In its first year, more than 60,000 schools enrolled in Fuel Up to Play 60. Together with the involvement of supporting organizations – including Action for Healthy Kids, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Dietetic Association, National Hispanic Medical Association, National Medical Association and School Nutrition Association – the Fuel Up to Play 60 program will further its progress by aiming to reach even more schools nationwide in the years ahead.
“Fuel Up to Play 60 inspired our students and let them know that they have a legitimate say in their health. I think these changes can really take hold, in large part because the students were the ones who determined what would work best for our school,” said Lisa Riley, Enslow’s Fuel Up to Play 60 Program Advisor. “We had too many kids not participating in P.E. class, so our students decided on starting a walking club – not only to get the other students active, but to also help increase their academic performance.”
Source: Fuel Up to Play 60