Know

Promoting Active Lifestyles in Your Program

You are the “chief wellness officer” for your program. You are a role model and set an example for others to follow. When you are active and create a culture that values physical activity, you are more likely to motivate others at your program to do the same. In turn, your staff will pass along healthy habits to children and their families. Some ways to promote physical activity among staff may include wearing a pedometer, taking a walk at lunch, participating with children on the playground, and sprucing up the grounds. When you incorporate physical activity into all aspects of your program, you are sending the message that this is a healthy place to grow, learn and work.

Children and Youth

As you have learned in Lesson One, physical activity is critical for brain and muscle development. With the rise of childhood obesity and the increase in sedentary activity for children and youth, it is important that your program adopt a proactive approach to wellness. Children form habits early in life in part by watching the adults around them. By promoting an active lifestyle you are helping children and youth adopt positive lifelong habits while also reducing the threat of childhood obesity.

As a Program Manager, you should make sure that children and youth are served healthy meals and snacks, have safe and ample space to engage in various types of physical activity, spend an appropriate amount of time outside, and receive the appropriate amount of daily physical activity while at your program.

Families

Families may be spending more time inside watching television or using a computer rather than outside riding bikes or taking walks. In today’s heavily scheduled world, it’s even more uncommon to find families engaged in physical activities together. However, with everyone being so busy, exercise can be a great way to incorporate physical activity with quality family time. Exercising as a family has many benefits including improved health, increased self-esteem, and opportunities for deepening connections. By promoting an active lifestyle in your program, you are helping families get fit and have fun together.

You and your staff can promote an active lifestyle for families by providing resources that suggest ways to include daily exercise that are not costly or time intensive. Starting a fitness committee that plans activity-related events is one idea. In Lesson One, you had the opportunity to rate your program using the Healthy Kids Healthy Future Checklist Quiz. As you use that quiz for feedback and planning purposes, you can also use the Healthy Kids, Healthy Future blank Action Plan Worksheet to plan ways to implement best practices around healthy lifestyles in your program: https://healthykidshealthyfuture.org/learn-more/quiz/action-plan/.

Perhaps providing a computer for families to use to access the information while at the program may prove useful. Head Start’s 5-2-1-0 model provides an easy to remember strategy:

• 5: Eat at least five fruits and vegetables a day.
• 2: Keep screen time (like TV, video games, computer) down to two hours or less per day.
• 1: Get one hour or more of physical activity every day.
• 0: Drink 0 sugar-sweetened drinks. Replace soda, sports drinks, and fruit drinks with milk or water.

You can also send ideas home. The Apply section has some wonderful resources for families with ideas for helping them build warm memories and lasting relationships while promoting fitness. Consider posting resources in your program and use ideas across settings.

Staff

There is a reason that many businesses put fitness facilities in their headquarters or provide discounts on gym memberships. They know that there is a strong relationship between physical activity, productivity, positive morale, and job satisfaction. Workplace physical-activity programs can reduce short-term sick leave by 6 to 32 percent, reduce health-care costs by 20 to 55 percent, and increase productivity by 2 to 52 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By promoting an active lifestyle in your program, you are contributing to the improved health of your employees while lowering costs associated with low productivity and illness.

You can promote an active lifestyle for staff members by encouraging them to include small amounts of physical activity throughout their day. Perhaps challenge staff to get the suggested 10,000 steps per day and reward those who do so each month with a healthy potluck.

Supervise & Support

Work with the Training & Curriculum Specialist in your program to ensure staff members have meaningful opportunities for physical activity every day. These don’t have to be formal events. They are just moments when you make an intentional effort to incorporate physical activity. Here are a few examples:

• Store a few large balance balls in your office or shared staff spaces. Encourage staff members to sit on those instead of chairs when you have meetings.
• Have walking meetings when appropriate. Take a lap around the outside of the facility while talking to staff members about your latest observation.
• Post something silly or encouraging above your office door and encourage staff to reach up and touch it on their way out.
• Begin and end meetings with a few stretches or breathing exercises.
• Have a contest to see who can park the farthest away from the building (safely).
• Encourage staff members to wear pedometers and track the steps they take at work. Have a workplace challenge.
• Participate in community events as a staff. There are 5K walks nearly every weekend in many locations around the country. You can get involved in walk-a-thons, jump-rope marathons, or dance marathons.
• When school-age programs take active field trips, get involved. Make sure staff members know they are expected to be participating with the children as part of active supervision. Bring your swimsuit when the group goes to the pool!
• Get everyone involved. If your program has a PA system, have a daily “movement minute.” Announce a fun or silly movement that everyone should do wherever they are.

It may be helpful to ask staff members how they prefer to move their bodies and stay active, to ensure that the activities you choose are responsive to staff interests and needs. Not everyone can move their body safely the same way, so consider how you can encourage physical activity for staff members with varying levels of fitness, physical ability and comfort.

Motivating Children, Youth, and Adults to Engage in Physical Activity

The key to motivation is feeling supported and rewarded by your efforts. When physical activity is part of your program culture, staff members are motivated to participate. By supporting Training & Curriculum Specialists as they create daily opportunities for movement, you are cultivating staff members’ motivation and participation. Continue to explore the Healthy Kids, Healthy Future website for ideas about building momentum for movement in your program. Start by creating a sense of fun and excitement. Talk to local businesses or gyms about whether they would donate items to help motivate staff, families, or children: a free pass to the gym or pool, a kettlebell, a yoga mat, a T-shirt, or a water bottle could all help motivate staff, children, or families to keep going.

In this lesson, you watched a video about the Air Force Fit Factor program. This type of program, in which children track their activity, can be a great model for your program. How can you help children, families and staff members be aware of their activity levels? Sometimes the simple act of tracking your activities can be motivating. Learn from others in your community and outside of it, and you will do your best to help develop a program that promotes healthy lifestyles for all. Your program plays a pivotal role in promoting good health, not only for today, but for years to come. The research is clear: regular exercise dramatically impacts health. Encourage active, healthy lifestyles by looking for ways to support staff, children, youth, and families in their efforts toward a healthier lifestyle.