What is Project Energize?
Project Energize is a project for primary schools to improve children's physical activity and nutrition, to improve their overall health.
 What does this mean for your school?
- A Team Energize staff member to support your school
- Additional professional development for teachers
- Opportunity to improve the overall health and nutrition of your students
- Continued working relationships with community health services
What types of things will Project Energize be doing in your school?
Team Energize staff are available to assist schools with a whole range of initiatives and projects related to healthy eating and physical activity.
For example:
- Help promote healthy eating through school lunch order systems
- Provide information on healthier food choices for lunches and snacks
- Assist teachers in providing varied and quality Daily Exercise activities
- Encourage children to choose more active play options at home
What programme will schools have?
- Each school will develop its own plan. This will be done in consultation with the children, teachers, parents and wider school community.
- Over the next year and a half Team Energize staff will be inviting parents to attend small group meetings to discuss the issues involved in improving children's lifestyle choices
Why is there a Project Energize?
We know that our children, along with the rest of our community, have increased health problems such as lack of fitness, poor teeth, poor bone strength, and increasing obesity. Project Energize has been designed to improve our children's health.
What has caused the increasing health problems?
The health problems are all associated with decreasing physical activity, increased inactive time, decreased intake of calcium, fruit, vegetables, and increased intake of fat and sugar-dense food and drink.
What are the parts of Project Energize?
Project Energize staff work with their schools (about six schools per staff member) over time to change elements of the school environment, to modify the activity programmes of schools, and to modify elements of the school curriculum. As part of the programme, staff will help their schools change nutrition and activity procedures, including the sorts of food and drink the children routinely have at school.
Isn't Project Energize yet another job for schools to add to their already busy schedule?
No - Project Energize is an "evolution not revolution" programme. Instead of adding to the school load, Project Energize staff will help the schools change what they do, and how they do it, not just add another curriculum programme to the full school programme. Project Energize is gradual, not a "big bang". Starting with a school stock take, the Project Energize staff will help schools identify opportunities for change, provide resources where needed, and support the change process.
What else is in Project Energize?
For the children involved, and over time their families and communities, we will be promoting a series of key messages related to nutrition and activity. The messages will reinforce activity of all kinds, and simple nutritional messages.
We will use a process called social marketing, which finds creative ways to ensure that the key messages become just a normal part of healthy living. It's important to make sure the key messages are consistent across home, school and community.
It's also important that the messages, and the programme actions, are consistent with each other. The focus will be on encouragement to change small things gradually over time, to achieve great changes in small steps.
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