Schuerer Hospital is making its way through classrooms to help fight childhood obesity. Through games and activities, hospital staff teaches first, third, and fifth graders to take better care of themselves.
“The kids really love it when we come in and they get super excited because it helps break up their day,” said Schuerer Health and Wellness Advocate Ben Zaleski, who recently taught an eight-week class at Owendale-Gagetown Area Schools.
Zaleski and his colleagues teach a 5210 program, which stands for the amount of time people should spend doing certain activities. According to this model, people should have five servings of fruits and vegetables, spend only two hours or less of their free time in front of a screen, get one hour of exercise, and have zero sugary drinks per day.
The program has the goal of seeing improvement in student health, or at least their knowledge of health, improve by 80% by the time the course is over. Thanks to their pre and post-testing, as well as community health needs assessments conducted every few years, Schuerer has seen that the program has been helpful in achieving the desired percentage.
“It definitely introduced them to topics they might not really learn about otherwise from their traditional teachers,” Zaleski commented.
He added that the guidelines forbidding sugary drinks and limiting screen time are new to older kids, who will usually drink all they want and play video games for long hours after school.
Zaleski attributes the success of the program partially to the activity and game-based approach, which makes learning enjoyable for students. Games played include Headbanz with a fruit and vegetable theme, a matching game of activities considered free time, and fitness bingo. It also helps that he and other “teachers” part of the program are from outside the school and break up the regular school day, so the students don’t really think of it as learning.
The 5210 model was originally created by Let’s Go!, a community engagement initiative in Portland, Maine. The initiative works with communities to create environments that are supportive of healthy life choices. Schuerer adapts this model into lessons and games that meet the model’s standards.
Zaleski and his colleagues started programs at North Huron, USA, and Caseville Schools the week of March 20.
