The Thamesview Family Health Team has partnered with the Maple City Mile Run Club and the Community Health Centre for an eight-week pilot project at Victor Lauriston Public School, teaching the Grade 5 and 6 class a learn to run and nutrition program.
Concluding the successful project Friday, about 20 students participated in a 5K run under the supervision of Doug Robbins with the Maple City Mile Run Club. Robbins said they started with teaching the kids how to run, but also wanted to help kids want to be more active and proud of their accomplishments.
“It started with the mechanics of running but it was more about building endurance and giving the students the inspiration to get moving,” Robbins said as he waited for the first of the runners to come in on Friday. “Childhood obesity is up 25 per cent, including here in Chatham-Kent and we want to try and reduce screen time and increase endurance so they can keep moving.”
Robbins said the feedback from the students has been very positive, as they gain confidence each week from the progress they made.
“There has been very positive peer pressure with the students encouraging each other and their confidence has gone up a lot,” the running coach said. “It’s not about whose first or last, it’s about sparking that confidence and making it grow, whether it be in public speaking or running, and teaching them how to feel comfortable in their own skin.”
Robbins said the program started with 20 students and finished with a core group of 15 participating in the 5K run, some of whom had never run that far before. As a small pilot project, Robbins said it has been very successful and that “Victor Lauriston has been an incredible platform” to start it off.
TFHT nutritionist Coraine Wray has also been in the school for the past eight weeks, working with Grade 5 and 6 students on proper nutrition, helping them come up with healthy lunch and snack ideas and teaching them basic cooking skills. Wray said she has also been introducing them to healthy food items they may not have tried before such as lentils and kidney beans and how they can be incorporated into a meal made from scratch.
“The feedback from the students has been very good from what I hear,” Wray said. “I’ve even had other students mentioning that something smells good coming out of the kitchen and they want to see what we’re doing.”
With the success of the pilot project, the partners in the program will be looking at expanding it to other schools.
