Healthy Buddies

“Healthy Buddies!” What a great idea. Developed by Dr. Jean-Pierre Chanoine, of British Columbia’s Children’s Hospital, Vancouver, Canada and tested at two public elementary schools, over one school year, participants in the “Healthy Buddies” program, boosted their physical activity levels, gained less weight, and showed smaller increases in blood pressure, compared with age-matched counterparts not enrolled in the program. To me, given the trend in childhood obesity, that is extraordinary.
In one school, teachers taught healthy-living lessons — the value of being physically active, eating healthy foods, and having a positive body image — to students in grades 4 to 7. These older students then paired with students in kindergarten to grade 3 to teach them similar healthy-living lessons. The other elementary school served as a control and underwent no intervention, the researchers report in the journal Pediatrics. After one school year, assessments of students’ knowledge of healthy living showed an increased overall understanding of healthy diet and behaviors in the intervention school compared with the control school.
So what does this mean to us? “Younger kids learn very efficiently from their older peers,” Chanoine noted in comments about the study, but how can we, as adults, apply the findings of this study? Use what we have learned from our own successes with healthy eating and exercise and spread the word to family members, friends, neighbors, co-workers and anyone who will listen. Be outspoken advocates. Instead of being silent, be vocal sharers with others of the benefits of a healthy lifestyle and make a difference. If the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. are true, then “We are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside…True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar.” We are healthy and because of it, wealthy and wise. Share that wealth of knowledge with those around you and be Healthy Buddies! Read more in the Reuters Health article here