Choose Health Initiative 

Choose Health

An initiative of the Cornell Cooperative Extension 4-H Youth Development Program intended to help all of us confront and take action to change the statistics of childhood obesity.

• Families today are busier than ever, with more work, school and afterschool activities and scheduling issues. Couple these things with more sedentary lifestyles and more access to quick, sometimes less healthy meal choices and you can easily see the reasons for today's childhood obesity statistics.  Have no fear, there are great, fun ways to stay fit and be healthy.
• Healthy Lifestyles Success Story Blog
• Why, What, When & How Much We Eat - Cornell Food and Brand Lab
• An Epidemic of Childhood Obesity - CCE Suffolk County

Project Materials

• Choose Health Officer Guide 
• Choose Health Officer- 4-H Leader Guide
• Choose Health Calendar
• 4-H Cooking Up Fun project - Cornell Division of Nutritional Sciences
• Just Move (Alabama)
• Resource Directory Curriculum

Resources to promote the 4-H Choose Health program

• Choose Health Bookmarks
• Healthy Fact Circles
• Pedometer Challenge - create teams and see which one can take the most average steps during a day or a week. 
       Sample Counting Sheet from State Fair 
       Sample Press Release
• Passport to healthy lifestyles (pdf) - publisher version Create a whole wellness competition to help youth and families think about their daily decisions for health.
• Fitness Trail - Plan several stations with fun, physical activities for participants to complete. End with healthy snacks. Sample Materials from State Fair 2008: 
        Fitness Trail Checklist 
        Fitness Trail Guide (for setup) 
        Fitness Trail Promo 
        Fitness Trail List of Activities
• Active Games - Directions for leading the games that were played in the Active Games workshop.  This document also contains reference materials and a list of materials to make your own "game bag".
• Choose Health as a National Mission Mandate

Produced in New York
PiNY is a youth cooking event designed to encourage kids to buy and cook with local foods, think about nutritional content and learn to cook independently.

• Powerpoint (on what PiNY is)
• Produced in New York Rules and Regs (Cayuga County)
• Menu planning sheet - empty
• Menu planning sheet - sample - pot pie Sample Recipe Book (Cayuga County)
• Notes for PiNY Evaluators