The Healthy Lifestyles School Project originated in the summer of 2009 with the goal of promoting healthy lifestyle choices among students and families at Garfield Primary School, Trewyn Middle School and Manual High School in Peoria.  The Full Service Community Schools (FSCS) Advisory Council proposed the project to Quest and a team was assembled.  Team members included a wide variety of local stakeholders:  school principals and staff, local government officials, youth, health and community focused non-profits, parents, nutritionists, medical experts, and local businesses.

The Healthy Lifestyles School (HLS) Project team started with research and conducted three focus groups- one with Garfield School parents and two with Manual High School Students. A survey was also developed and given to students in the 4th, 7th, 8th, 10th and 11th grades. The survey asked questions regarding nutrition, eating habits, physical activity, computer/television screen time and sleep habits. The team conducted a community food assessment in order to look at what foods are available in the area and their cost.

After all the research was gathered, the HLS team worked diligently on developing a set of recommendations to present to the Full Service Community Schools (FSCS) Advisory Council this month. The team came up with a list of 7 recommendation areas (long and short-term time frames) to increase healthy lifestyle choices among students at Garfield, Trewyn and Manual.

The recommendations consisted of:

• Creating a Full Service Community School Wellness Council
• Developing and implementing a wellness model for Full Service Community Schools
• Expanding on-site afterschool physical activity programming
• Increasing the amount of physical activity for students
• Offering nutrition education at every grade level K-12
• Directly working with food service providers to offer the healthiest meals possible
• Encouraging parent focused nutrition education initiatives
• Developing programs to work with youth requiring focused intervention in addressing obesity

The next steps for the Healthy Lifestyles School Project include the continuation of data collection to monitor progress, identifying resource requirements, and implementing a Wellness Council as part of the Full Service Community School.  The Wellness Council has been meeting since July 12 and has several exciting projects underway.  Read about the newest projects in next week's blog.