Eat Well & Keep Moving is a school-based program that equips children with the knowledge, skills, and supportive environment they need to lead more healthful lives by choosing nutritious diets and being physically active. Research shows that a good diet and adequate physical activity can significantly reduce the risk of obesity and chronic diseases, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes, all of which can begin early in childhood. However, many children are not eating the food and getting the exercise they need to combat these chronic diseases and promote lifeline good health.
The Eat Well & Keep Moving curriculum—which includes classroom lessons for fourth and fifth grade students, physical education lessons, and engaging school-wide campaigns—allows children to learn about nutrition and physical activity while building skills in language arts, math, science, and social studies. The program was launched in 1993 to provide teachers and school staff with the tools that students need to lead healthier lives. Initially designed as a joint research project between the Harvard School of Public Health and Baltimore City Public Schools, Eat Well & Keep Moving has evolved into a comprehensive program that can be introduced in other school systems throughout the country, including urban, suburban, and rural schools.
Unlike traditional health curricula, Eat Well & Keep Moving is a multifaceted program encompassing all aspects of the learning environment, from the classroom, cafeteria, and gymnasium to the school hallways, the home, and even community centers. This comprehensive approach helps reinforce important messages about nutrition and physical activity, and it increases the chance that students will eat well and keep moving throughout their lives. The program is also proven to be effective at combating a major factor related to childhood obesity: too much time watching television. In extensive field tests among students and teachers using the program, children ate more fruits and vegetables, reduced their intake of saturated and total fat, watched less TV, and improved their knowledge of nutrition and physical activity.(1) Above all, the program is well liked by teachers and students.
The program is designed to use existing school resources, to fit within school curricula, and to be inexpensive to implement, with camera-ready teaching materials, so teachers and schools find it easy to adopt. Schools are hard-pressed to find time for "extra" subjects; with the integrated design of Eat Well & Keep Moving, nutrition and physical activity can be taught by classroom teachers in core subject areas (including math, language arts, and science). Since the publication of the first edition of Eat Well & Keep Moving in 2001, the program has reached all 50 U.S. states and more than 20 countries. The second edition, published in October 2007, has been updated to incorporate the latest scientific recommendations from the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005. Notably, the new edition also includes two new lessons on sugar-sweetened beverage consumption, a key determinant of child overweight.
To see sample lessons, teacher training materials, and more information about Eat Well & Keep Moving, visit the Eat Well & Keep Moving website, www.eatwellandkeepmoving.org.
1. Gortmaker SL, Cheung LW, Peterson KE, Chomitz G, Cradle JH, Dart H, Fox MK, Bullock RB, Sobol AM, Colditz G, Field AE, Laird N. Impact of a school-based interdisciplinary intervention on diet and physical activity among urban primary school children: eat well and keep moving. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 1999;153:975-83.