Alliance for a Healthier Generation honors local Boys and Girls Club

At the recent Alliance for a Healthier Generation 2014 Leaders Summit in Washington, D.C., the Wilson Park Unit of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Philadelphia was honored with the Healthy Out-of-School Time Hero Award for its commitment to helping children develop healthy habits by focusing on nutritious eating and physical activity.

At Wilson Park in South Philadelphia, they are promoting healthier lifestyles by replacing unhealthy foods with healthy foods and beverages, finding ways to eliminate junk food at holiday celebrations, and by introducing physical activities such as relay races and dancing.

"They encouraged and incorporated healthy choices for kids," said Libby Lescalleet, Executive Program Officer at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Philadelphia. "For example, for their Halloween Party instead of serving junk food, they offered vegetable skeletons, tangerine jack o'lanterns and banana ghosts."

Lescalleet said that they also introduced fitness programs like Zumba and yoga, and during their summer programs they offered 30 minutes of various types of physical activity. Another important part of their health programs is to educate kids and their parents on healthy eating and how to properly measure calorie and fat intake.

Although, the Wilson Park Unit was the site honored at the summit, Lescalleet said that all of the sites of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Philadelphia have made the commitment to the Alliance for a Healthier Generation's initiatives.

"All of our sites are focusing on issues of hydration, nutrition and portion distortion through our health programs. One program teaches the kids how to make sushi on a shoe-string budget and juicing has been a big hit," Lescalleet said.

"We are excited to be first to receive this community award. We saw the obesity epidemic reaching a critical point and wanted to be a part of the solution," she said.

Three Philadelphia schools were honored as well at the summit for their own health and wellness efforts: CCA Baldi Middle School, Franklin S. Edmonds Elementary School, and John Wister Elementary School.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, childhood obesity rates have more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents since the 1970s. Concern over this obesity epidemic in the United States led to the development of the Alliance for a Healthier Generation founded by the Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association in 2005 to work with schools, companies, community organizations, healthcare professionals and families to build healthier environments for children to grow up in.

The Alliance's Healthy Schools Program, a national initiative supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has helped more than 24,000 schools increase quality physical activity, health education and healthy eating with resources, tools and professional development. With the assistance of the Alliance's Healthy Schools Program, many schools started serving healthier meals in advance of the federal implementation deadline of the USDA's Smart Snacks in School that went into effect July 1.

This is the first year the Alliance has honored community organizations and businesses as well as schools.

"We were thrilled to honor community and business leaders, who have shown an extraordinary commitment to tackling the child obesity epidemic with our Healthier Generation Hero Awards.," said Dr. Howell Wechsler, Chief Executive Officer, Alliance for a Healthier Generation.

The Boys and Girls Clubs of Philadelphia have been serving the local youth since 1887. Find out more about how to get your kids involved in your local club at http://www.bgcphila.org/. If you are interested in being a volunteer, e-mail Libby Lescalleet at lescalleetl@bgcphila.org.