As part of the Y’s commitment to strengthen community by addressing critical gaps in health and education, the 20th annual Healthy Kids Day was held at the Fall River YMCA on April 28, 2012 to provide children and families to sample what the Y has to offer in the way of recreation and other activities. The event was designed to encourage kids and parents to commit to keeping the body and mind active this summer, a time when activity actually drops off for many children, as described on Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move web site.. The Fall River Y offered a chance to sample rock wall climbing, play basketball, talk to members of the Fall River Police S.W.A.T. team, among other events.  The Fall River Y runs a variety of programs six days a week in their downtown  location, each of which promotes a healthy body, mind and spirit.

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As part of the Y’s commitment to strengthen community by addressing critical gaps in health and education, the 20th annual Healthy Kids Day was held at the Fall River YMCA on April 28, 2012 to provide children and families to sample what the Y has to offer in the way of recreation and other activities. The event was designed to encourage kids and parents to commit to keeping the body and mind active this summer, a time when activity actually drops off for many children, as described on Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move web site.. The Fall River Y offered a chance to sample rock wall climbing, play basketball, talk to members of the Fall River Police S.W.A.T. team, among other events.  The Fall River Y runs a variety of programs six days a week in their downtown  location, each of which promotes a healthy body, mind and spirit. Click here for a  video of the event. Click here for the Herald News article. Click here to see the 2010 event and here for the Family Home Starter Kit to help families improve their health status. For more information about programs at the Fall River Y, call 508-675-7841 or click here to see a schedule. (Bottom row photos courtesy of Michelle Alves)
(Top row, left and right) Y staff member Conner Sowersby works with kids who want to try out the basketball hoop in the gym. (Top row, center) Anita Taylor of ChiropracticUSA hands a baloon to five-year-old Sophia Afanso while her older sister, Julliana and her mom look at the balloons that have escaped to the ceiling. (Second row) Y Aquatic Director Stephen Langlais holds the safety rope tightly as nine-year-old Myles Barth works his way up the climbing wall. (Third row) Six-year-old Matthew Barth and his ten-year-old brother, Michael, also try their hand at the climbing wall. (Bottom row) A boy tries on the Fall River Police Department S.W.A.T. team equipment, Gail Hartnett Roderigues does some face painting, and children enjoy doing crafts on the third floor.

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Bringing together the nation’s leading research institutions, THE WEIGHT OF THE NATION is a presentation of HBO and the Institute of Medicine (IOM), in association with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and in partnership with the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and Kaiser Permanente.

The centerpiece of THE WEIGHT OF THE NATION campaign is the four-part documentary series, each featuring case studies, interviews with our nation’s leading experts, and individuals and their families struggling with obesity. The first film, CONSEQUENCES, examines the scope of the obesity epidemic and explores the serious health consequences of being overweight or obese. The second, CHOICES, offers viewers the skinny on fat, revealing what science has shown about how to lose weight, maintain weight loss and prevent weight gain. The third, CHILDREN IN CRISIS, documents the damage obesity is doing to our nation’s children. Through individual stories, this film describes how the strong forces at work in our society are causing children to consume too many calories and expend too little energy; tackling subjects from school lunches to the decline of physical education, the demise of school recess and the marketing of unhealthy food to children. The fourth film, CHALLENGES, examines the major driving forces causing the obesity epidemic, including agriculture, economics, evolutionary biology, food marketing, racial and socioeconomic disparities, physical inactivity, American food culture, and the strong influence of the food and beverage industry.

Great news! Not only will we be having most of our wonderful regular vendors returning, but we are now welcoming a CSA to our vendor list! Apponagansett Farms (new to South Dartmouth) will be at our market on Saturday to encourage you to sign-up for their 20 week CSA program! Come on down to learn more about what Community Supported Agriculture is, and how we can

“Even though California has a physical education law and monitors its compliance, our study revealed that many school districts are not providing the required physical education and too many children go to school in districts that do not comply with physical education laws,” said Emma V. Sanchez-Vaznaugh, Sc.D., the study’s lead author and assistant professor of health education at San Francisco State University.

Grade school children spend a large portion of their day in school, giving educators a unique opportunity to influence life-long health habits. Children who are less physically active are more likely to have poorer overall health and have an increased risk for obesity.    California has a law that makes physical education mandatory for students in grades 1 to 6, requiring that each student receive 200 minutes of physical education every 10 days. Of the 55 school districts for which compliance data were available, only half were compliant.

Researchers found that students in policy-compliant school districts were 29 percent more likely to be physically fit, as measured by performance on a 1-mile run or walk test, than students in noncompliant districts.

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