HEAL-SLO, a collaboration of over 30 local organizations that works to address the childhood obesity epidemic in SLO County is on another mission to educate and encourage our community to live a healthier lifestyle by becoming more physically active and eating locally and healthfully.
The goal of Let's Move SLO is to spark community awareness about the benefits of increased physical activity and healthy eating. This initiative grew out of a conference call with First Lady Michelle Obama, in which 4,500 people committed to making better choices to improve the health of our nation's children through community and organizational empowerment.
Beginning March 7th, HEAL-SLO members will collaboratively reach out to their constituencies representing several thousand community members to remind, inspire and encourage our community to aspire to living a healthier lifestyle. Our community will be encouraged to visit www.healslo.com and "Commit" to either "Move More," or "Eat Healthfully & Locally." Highlighted within the HEAL-SLO website are extraordinary examples of what some of our HEAL-SLO volunteers are doing in our own backyard to empower our local families and youth in an effort to create the nation's healthiest community (visit http://www.healslo.com for more information).
A perfect example of “Let’s Move SLO’s!” purpose (to spark community awareness about the benefits of increased physical activity and healthy eating) is a collaboration between Equilibrium Fitness, Community Action Partnership (CAP-SLO) and Community Health Centers of the Central Coast which has yielded a boost in fitness levels at Arroyo Grande High School. Equilibrium Fitness, a project team member since 2011 has further developed the boot camp curriculum and added a very unique and cool addition: a youth personal training workshop. The program, Fitness Youth Trainers Revolution (FYT Rev), will provide an opportunity for youth to become peer-to-peer fitness leaders and experience what it entails to work as a personal trainer while also enhancing knowledge of anatomy, physiology, nutrition, motivation and leadership. After a three day workshop and 20 hours of hands-on observation and internship hours, youth trainers will be qualified to teach or assist with Project Teen Health (PTH) 6-Week Boot Camps, a campus-wide health fair, and Healthy Start PE Classes. The eventual goal is to expand the FYT Rev program to other local high schools, recreation centers and health clubs. To date, 16 students have completed the FYT Rev program and are currently in the process of completing their internship hours. "I can't tell you how excited I am to see this program get off the ground" says Julian Varela, co-owner of Equilibrium Fitness. "I've been working on trying to launch this program [FYT Rev] for years and teaming up with CAP-SLO has been the perfect vehicle for doing so...I couldn't have asked for a better team of professionals to work with”. As exemplified with FYT Rev, the “Let’s Move SLO!” campaign encourages community members to get active, enjoy healthy foods, and eat locally. For more information on “Let’s Move SLO!”, or other healthy eating and active living initiatives and organizations, please visit www.HealSLO.org.
