Rudyard Elementary School has implemented the Project Healthy Schools program.
Project Healthy Schools encourages healthy habits through education, environmental change and measurement while building a sustainable framework for school wellness. The educational lessons focus on sixth grade students. However, the program benefits all students in the school, as well as school staff and families through take-home activities, changes to the school environment and wellness initiatives tailored to the school’s needs.
“We are excited that Rudyard Elementary was selected to receive the Project Healthy Schools program because healthier students are better learners,” said Wendy Peterson, Rudyard Elementary School principal. “Our students will benefit by learning healthy habits that they can use their whole life.”
Rudyard Elementary is one of 19 schools across the state participating in the Project Healthy Schools program this year. The Project Healthy Schools program is supported at Rudyard Elementary by the University of Michigan.
The program goals are for students to: Eat more fruits and vegetables, choose less sugary food and beverages, eat less fast and fatty food, be active every day, and spend less time in front of a screen.
Project Healthy Schools is one of the few school-based programs nationally that have demonstrated significant improvements in both health behavior and cardiovascular risk factors.
“Anything we can do to fight childhood obesity in a culture where it is being fostered in so many ways is critical,” says Kim Eagle, M.D., Albion Walter Hewlett professor of internal medicine and director of the Samuel and Jean Frankel Cardiovascular Center at the University of Michigan Health System.
In 2004, Eagle founded Project Healthy Schools in collaboration with local organizations in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Since then, the program has been implemented in middle schools across the state.
For more information about Project Healthy Schools visit: www.projecthealthyschools.org