Allan Appel Photo
For the next eight weeks, Yarelis Cordoso and Xitlali Vazquez agreed to eat three fruits or veggies per day, exercise for an hour, and perform an act of kindness before they retire to at least eight hours of sleep.
If they do all those things, they’ll walk away as “heroes.”
The Clinton Avenue School students (at left and right in photo, respectively) took that challenge, along with about 170 other kids and their families as the New Haven Public Schools kicked off its Health Heroes program.
The program, funded by a $32,000 grant from Yale’s Community Alliance for Research and Engagement (CARE), began Friday morning with essay and poster contests, snazzy banners, life-sized ninja-esque cutouts, and gift incentives at Clinton Avenue and three other pilot schools.
The other schools are Nathan Hale, Augusta Lewis Troup, and John C. Daniels. CARE is the Yale School of Public Health-based group that also did the survey last year of the availability of fresh vegetables and green markets in lower income sections of the city.
The program aims to tackle rising rates of obesity and diabetes within the city school population, according to Sue Peters, the Health Heroes program director at CARE. She said the rates are not in excess of other low-income urban populations around the country, but are alarming enough.
Health Heroes is following a slew of other interventions on nutrition and physical exercise, such as fresher food in the schools, the Physical Activities and Wellness programs and “Take Ten,” a seat-side exercise program in the classrooms that have been evolving over recent years.
Health Heroes is a social marketing program designed to encourage kids to extend these healthy behaviors at home. To inspire the kids, there are lots of incentives. That means prizes.
Yarelis won the inaugural essay contest in which she described her parents as her health heroes “because they exercise every day and at home they are always eating vegetables and fruits like berries, oranges, apples, pears, carrots, peas, peaches, potatoes, non-salted crackers, fruit bars, and broccoli.”
Xitlali was a poster winner for how she depicted her gym teacher Ms. Bush as her hero.
Both kids received iPods and big time recognition, including certificates adorning the airy entry lobby of the school.
Schools Chief Operating Officer Will Clark said Health Heroes “goes hand in glove with [school] reform. Physical and mental health are critical factors in the ability to learn and succeed,” he said.
When kids are sleep-deprived or spend too much time watching TV, their academic achievement declines, he noted.
Which was one reason why Yarelis’ and Xitlali’s families formally had to sign on Wednesday night, during the first report card night.
The challenge will go on for eight weeks, and the parents will sign off on their kids’ activities half way through and at the end. Yarelis’s teacher Lisa Pereira, who is also Clinton’s wellness coordinator, said she was thrilled that 128 signed on. (Troup School had the other 50). They got a tote bag and other swag for their efforts.
Buy-in from families is essential in changing behavior, Pereira said. And so is the regular activity. “Consecutive is important.”
She said her next goal is to get 200 families signed up. After the entry challenge of eight weeks, each school is being encouraged to mount supplementary challenges.
Peters said Clinton Avenue School was interested in a garden, so kids could be garden heroes, for example in a second eight-week challenge that would be launched, assuming new sponsors can be found, in the spring.
She said that a year before the launch, CARE’s staff came to Clinton and 11 other NHPS schools and measured kids’ height, weight, blood pressure, and waist circumference.
“We’ll go back and do it a year from now,” she said, to determine if Health Heroes has made a difference.