CONCEPT

HealthCorps® educates American youth about the workings and wonders of their bodies through in school seminars on diet, nutrition, and exercise. HealthCorps empowers children to become educated consumers and to make shifts in behavior that can be measured by changes in rates of obesity and physical fitness as well as mental resilience and self esteem.

PROGRAM

This cost effective program uses many of the lessons learned from the Peace Corps experience, but our instructors dedicate their time to help children domestically rather than overseas. HealthCorps coordinators, recent college graduates interested in health-related fields, are paid a two-year stipend to teach students that to change their bodies, they must know their bodies. The core curriculum focuses, in a user-friendly way, on:

"How Your Body Thinks": Metabolic Motors, The Science of Appetite, The Biology of Fat
"You Are What you Eat": Vitamins, Nutrients, Food Labels, Cooking & Buying Healthy
"Make the Move": Fitness As An Everyday Part of Your Life
"The Chemistry of Emotions": Feelings, Food & Fitness and the Power of Optimism

Students are given pedometers and are taught a 10,000 step/day walking program, invited to join after school yoga and fitness clubs, and taught strength training. They listen to guest speakers such as chefs, yoga instructors and personal trainers. Students make field trips to hospital operating rooms and examine real human organs in their own classroom to gain new insights into the most precious item they will ever inherit - their bodies.

NEED

“Over the past three decades, the childhood obesity rate has more than doubled for pre-school children aged 2-5 years and adolescents aged 12-19 years, and it has more than tripled for children aged 6-11 years. At present, approximately nine million children over six years of age are considered obese”*. “Adult-onset” diabetes, manifesting in teens, has tripled. Young people are at risk of developing serious medical and psycho-social burdens in a society that stigmatizes this condition and ultimately has to pay the back-side healthcare costs with which obesity is associated. We are mortgaging our nation’s future with the obesity crisis. Only one state in the United States currently requires physical education classes for high school students. Only 63% of U.S. schools have a recognized health coordinator. HealthCorps can fill such voids.

Communities of Color in Crisis

HealthCorps strategic implementation plan targets communities most at risk for childhood obesity and obesity related diabetes and heart disease.  These communities right now are overwhelmingly Hispanic and African American.  Most of the students in our program fall within these demographics.

PARTNERSHIPS

In order to achieve its goals and to support the program costs of approximately $75,000 per school, HealthCorps depends upon public/private partnerships with local school districts, local government, like-minded institutions, corporations and individuals. We seek to integrate with and enhance existing school health initiatives through the implementation of our curriculum. HealthCorps aspires to build a city, state and eventually national network of programs, sharing the same vision and building upon each participant school’s experience and knowledge.

*Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, “Childhood Obesity, Fact and Figures”, Fact Sheet, September 2004