Parent Engagment Tuesdays
Centre Avenue Carnegie Library
January 6, 2009
Dr. Ann McGaffey of UPMC and Kristin Hughes of the CMU School of design presented a program, Fitwits, designed to engage and teach elementary age children about the importance of healthy nutrition and exercise. They have rewritten the PPS Health and Wellness program, making it easier to digest for PPS parents.
In attendance were Mark Connor, PPS Parent Engagement specialist, and 4 PPS parents. Below is a summary of the program.
Fitwits™ is a series of games, funded by the Heinz Endowments that teaches children ages 9-12 about food portions, nutrition and exercise. It is a fun and pragmatic way of teaching children about healthy living with tools designed for physicians, teachers and parents. Fitwits’ goal is to improve and to help prevent childhood obesity. This is a public health problem, which affects 32% of American children. To date, few practical strategies are available to clinicians, despite the discerning interest and work of many clinicians, institutions and agencies.
Fitwits has strong public health underpinnings. The curriculum is innovative, involves several interdependent settings for children and their families, and has three effective phases. The three phases include: our school health program, the primary care doctor office, and the community and family environment. The design process for each phase procures invention by kids, observations, trials, suggestions, as well as continual assessment and modifications from participants. This is a novel process that sets Fitwits apart from other childhood obesity interventions.
The first phase of Fitwits is in testing in a number of schools at the 5th grade level (Fort Pitt, Arsenal, Woolslair, Urban League, Pittsburgh Montessori). The school program involves 20 minutes of didactics and practical demonstrations on portion control, nutrition and obesity related diseases. The presentation is followed by an exciting memory and trivia card game that translates practical knowledge of health and nutrition to the students in fun, competitive, and memory-enhancing ways. Throughout the program, a series of characters called the Fitwits and the Nitwits help kids understand positive and negative attributes associated with food. The Fitwits and Nitwits are recipe cards that aspire to be fit and are easily understood as visual cues of fat and sugar content. Portions are incorporated into a literal hand guide, which makes knowledge of portions readily accessible and individualized for children. Five, 30-second animated commercial breaks are interspersed throughout the hour.
