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For my senior project at school, I am starting a youth soccer program that will be open to children grades 5-8. It will be low cost, so that it will be available to low-income families in the area. Also, this program will run in the summer, when there is currently no soccer program available for children who want to play. The money that I raise will buy equipment for the program that will then be donated to the St. Johnsbury Recreation Department. I will also be looking for donations to help purchase tee-shirts for the children. Hopefully my program will help get children interested in sports and physical activity, thus promoting a healthier lifestyle.

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To have a healthy lifestyle you must have an appropriate nutrition and stay active. An active lifestyle should be some type of physical activity. It is important to eat better and exercise regularly. How well you eat and exercise can establish your health now and in the future.
Many factors add to a need of nutritional health in elders. Eating by yourself, eating a lot or not enough, taking medicine, suffering from constant diseases or conditions, financial difficulties, and needing help with care are just a few examples of what can affect your eating habits. Even if you are a caregiver it is important to eat foods that are nutritious and reduce any types of risks.
Activities often develop within age. Different studies show that by the age of 75, one out of three men and one out of two women are not active. It has been said that physical activity can help extend and improve quality of life. It can also reduce stress and moods. Staying physically active on a regular basis can help prevent certain diseases for example types of cancer, heart disease, or diabetes and disabilities as one grow older. Exercising can even improve the organization on diseases or disabilities that people may already have.

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I believe that exercise through physical education and sports activities are not being sufficiently encouraged in our schools, from elementary school through intermediate school and high school. Exercise appears to have become the exclusive domain of a select group of students who are typically participants in competitive sports events. Thus, all the other students who are not on the schools' athletic teams, have a propensity to become obese from an early age as a result of no physical education or sports activity at school. As these students grow older, the effects of depriving them of exercise starts multiplying exponentially by affecting the attitudes of others by association through friendships, at home, etc. I feel that all of us realize the scope of this neglect, but no one in a position to make changes seems to have the courage to admit what is true and then to take the initiative to make changes.

My suggestions for promoting healthy lifestyles in early childhood are quite simple :-
(1) All school gymnasiums should have basic exercise machines and equipment available for students' use, and their use should be promoted under age-appropriate supervision. Each week, each grade should have at least 1 period allocated to fitness exercises in the gymnasium. Some of the machines that could be used would be identical to the ones found at fitness centers such as Bally's or 24 Hour Fitness.
(2) During the school week, each grade should have at least 2 periods for supervised team sports such as softball, soccer, etc. e.g. A class could be divided into 2 teams, and rules set that would allow 1 hour of a game to be played on a sports field. A supervising coach would determine the level of competitiveness that would be right for a given age group of students.
(3) Arrange with nearby sports clubs that have age-appropriate coaching classes to be willing to sign up students who wish to participate in lessons on Saturdays at substantially discounted prices.

I believe all the above ideas are realistic, and local fitness and sports clubs would be willing to donate equipment and provide funds as well, in order to promote an awareness of the benefits of sports and exercise from an early age onwards. Healthier children will in turn increase exponentially the number of people affected, through their association with family members, friends and others.

On the opposite side of this equation, by not taking action, we are sending unhealthy messages to children, such as watching too much television and getting obese from a lack of school-supported exercise.

I hope to have an opportunity to be able to present this project as something that is not only feasible and economical, but which can be accomplished in a short time with a few simple steps.

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This project takes a teens teaching youth approach to spreading the word about healthy lifetsyles. Through the use of the NJ 4-H Get Moving/Get Healthy program, teens in a local high school will be trained to teach fun, hands-on lessons that focus healthy lifestyles. These teens will then go into 4th grade classrooms in elementary schools to teach these lessons to students.

“Get Moving – Get Healthy with New Jersey 4-H” was created as a way for Rutgers Cooperative Research & Extension’s Department of 4-H Youth Development to address the Childhood Overweight/Obesity issue in New Jersey. Programs aimed at improving nutrition and physical activity levels with youth can have a long term impact on young people’s health and well being throughout their life span so it is important to change children’s habits early in life. Because of this, the “Get Moving – Get Healthy with New Jersey 4-H” program is designed to reach elementary school age children as the primary audience.

The Get Moving/Get Healthy (GMGH) program is a kit of 8 different hands on lessons that focus on 3 areas: easy ways to get exercies, understanding MyPyramid, and portion sizes. The activities include Think What You Drink, Serving Mix and Match, Portion Distortion, Finding Your Pyramid, Healthy Plate, Measure Up, Read the Label, and What Counts. Each of these activities was created and approved by teens throughout the state of New Jersey for inclusion in the GMGH kit.

We have several teens in Morris County trained as Food and Fitness Ambassadors. These teens teach and present the GMGH program at events around the state. For this program, Food and Fitness Ambassadors will help plan and teach two 2-hour training sessions for local high school students. At the end of the training, these students will also be Food and Fitness Ambassadors (FFAs.)

The new FFAs will then plan four 1-hour sessions for 4th grade students in their district. Each 1-hour session will focus on specific lessons from the kit and end with preparing a healthy snack. All youth will be pre and post-tested on the knowledge they gained during their sessions with the Food and Fitness Ambassadors.

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The only way to becoming a healtier person and becoming the person you want to be is by just doing something about it. This is a page that I want to create just to help people find out what is out there in the fitness world by allowing people to comment on my page and give ideas for healthy places to eat, what kinds of foods are out that most people don't think about, games, sports, daily activities that contribute to a healthy life style.

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I am a physical education teacher at a public high school and instruct a "Fit for Life" after school program. Through this program, the students are developing the knowledge and skills to be...fit for life! They begin to understand the concepts of fitness and a healthy lifestyle and are giving the opportunity to have first hand experience with creating fitness goals. My goal is to teach students how to enhance their physical fitness without the cost of expensive equipment and gym membership. I teach skills that the students can utilize at home using resistant bands, small hand weights, stability balls and mats. Though this equipment is relative inexpensive, I have 37 students in my program and the cost to purchase all that equipment is out of our budget. I want to be able to have all students participating throughout the entire time to maximize participation. I would also like to gift the equipment to the students so they continue this program and teach family members at home to be fit for life. Students become the teachers.