Activity, nutritional program targets childhood obesity
Kansas Kids CAN makes learning about healthy habits fun
By Tim Vandenack
The Hutchinson News
tvandenack@hutchnews.com
GARDEN CITY - Childhood obesity is nothing to kid around about.
"It's becoming crisis level," said Vicki James, who helps run a program aimed at instilling healthy habits in children, Kansas Kids CAN. And it's far from an issue of aesthetics, she added, noting the health and financial repercussions of obesity.
Awareness of the issue is rising, but Kansas Kids CAN aims to spur consciousness, and James led a seminar Friday in Garden City as part of the effort. Attending were representatives from schools, libraries, extension offices, hospitals and other entities from around southwest Kansas. They will take the information learned back home with them and inject it into their everyday activities with children.
"What this is about is changing behavior over time," said James. "It's building that repetition of the message."
Kansas Kids CAN - the last part stands for Connect Activity and Nutrition - is funded by a three-year, $182,000 grant from the Sunflower Foundation in Topeka. Now in its second year, 43 entities from 16 counties are taking part, up from 25 last year.
Bill Wilson, superintendent of Tribune USD 200 and a participant Friday, is a newcomer to the program, but he says the importance of focusing on children's health is obvious. Kansas Kids CAN calls on participating entities to inject physical activity, however light, into routine dealings with children and proffer information about healthy eating.
"We're about helping kids and educating students, and students can't learn if they're not healthy," Wilson said.
Moreover, movement "awakens the brain," he said, while Kim Darrough-Hayden, who handles health education for Ulysses USD 214, notes that fun physical action can also aid, subtly, in learning activities.
"Sometimes you can teach them things without them realizing that they're learning something," she said.
James said the participating programs have a potential reach of nearly 11,000 children, but measuring success is difficult. The idea is to change habits little by little, chipping away over time at tastes for junk food and sedentary activities.
Whatever the case, Darrough-Hayden says her efforts seem to be having an impact.
Children "see me in a grocery store and say, 'Hey Mrs. H., what are we going to do today?' " she said.
And the need, says Carol Rittscher, is there.
"You see more and more obese adults around you every day," said the children's librarian at Memorial Library in Liberal, a new participant in the program. "You need to start with kids."
Participants in Kansas Kids CAN get a tub of colorful items, including scarves, cones, beanbags and other items, to be used in games and light physical activity. The goal isn't to overwhelm children with a workout, however, but to get them moving.
Similarly, discussion about healthy eating, the other prong of the program, isn't supposed to come off as lecturing. James worries about good health proponents coming across as "food police" and says the key is to educate, keeping the entertainment quotient high.
"We want it to be fun and simple," she said.
Childhood Obesity program