Health Initiative Shapes Up Teachers

It all started when I began bringing my daughter to day care every morning. I would always pack her lunch box with a freshly cooked breakfast, (wheat-free, seven-grain cereal with coconut milk or hard boiled eggs) and nutrient-packed snacks, (apples and cheese, bananas with almonds, organic yogurt). To my dismay, I would continually see her precious classmates starting their day with Pop-Tarts, donuts or muffins along with chocolate milk or sugary fruit juice for breakfast - foods devoid of nutrients whatsoever!

That's when I realized that the population has truly lost sight of why we humans eat in the first place. Marketing and advertising have taken the place of rational thinking about what we put into our bodies. The nation's population is getting sicker and sicker, and this has to stop. If we keep feeding our children processed food, we will continue to see childhood obesity increase and the health of our future generations plummet.

As a parent, personal trainer, nutritional consultant and wellness professional, I find that very frightening and unacceptable.

Upon reflecting on the situation with our staff at Mind and Body Wellness, and weighing how we can help, it dawned on us that we can control the food that our children eat at home, but there is still a lot that needs to be done while they are at school. So why not start there?

We started with the role models of the school, the people who are with our children a majority of a 24-hour day, our educators and childcare workers.

We believe that once teachers understand and experience what real health is, the voice of change becomes louder.

That is why Humana, the Hillsborough County school district and Mind and Body Wellness is running the inaugural "12 Weeks to Wellness," a program designed for teachers. The class operates at two different sites, Tampa Bay Technical and at the district headquarters downtown, and we've scheduled three more programs for 2008.

Our goal is to help teachers begin to change to more healthy lifestyles. We started with physical assessments, photos and blood work for each of the participants. The program includes weekly interactive group classes with subjects ranging from nutrition, mental attitudes, action planning and goal setting to exercise, identifying food triggers and stress reduction.

Participants are given weekly homework assignments and are asked to keep food diaries to track their eating and behaviors. They partner with a wellness coach for regular talks about how well they're doing.

The class is really about teaching participants how to make rational lifestyle choices, how to keep things in perspective and how to understand what true health is.