Fitness & Nutritional Wellness

Our fitness & wellness program component provides physical fitness and nutritional education opportunities for youths from ages 5-21. Through exercise, character development, discipline and socialization skills, the program fosters teamwork and sportsmanship. The program has flexibility and modified exercises to meet the needs of youths that are physical or mentally challenged, overweight or underdeveloped. We seek to encourage a lifelong respect for a healthy body and the development of personal resistance to drugs, alcohol and tobacco abuse. We strive to instill the positive values of physical fitness and provide a combination of realistic challenges and aware-ness, thus setting a pattern of fitness for a lifetime.

Our program enables youths to participate and enjoy a future of self- improvement. It is not impossible to set -standards for all levels of overweight, underdeveloped and physically challenged youths. It is left to the judgment of our athletic staff and information received from the participant doctor to determine how exercise should be modified to meet an individual's needs. The program objectives are to test each youth 3 times during the course of the year. The first test takes place at the beginning of the year, to gauge their fitness levels. The second test is done in the middle of the year, and the final test is conducted a the end of the year to evaluate their progress to determine the needs of each youth in the program.

Wellness

Our nutrition and wellness intervention is community-based and designed to prevent obesity for youths between the ages of 5-21 years old in the culturally diverse and high-risk inner city neighborhoods of Buffalo, New York. This model intervention is aimed at assessing and reducing obesity in the inner city neighborhoods. Our priorities are to raise awareness, change behaviors and address the youths' obesity, lack of healthy diets, provide the information for youths to understand their nutrition needs and physical fitness levels to live a healthy lifestyle. Our fitness & wellness intervention for healthy youths is to reduce chronic diseases by targeting the four main risk facts: diet, physical activities, tobacco and alcohol use.

Understanding Their Needs

In the knowledge to understand their nutritional needs and physical fitness level in maintaining the right balance of dietary habits and exercise is a key element to a healthy lifestyle, understanding the nutritional value of food, importance of portion size, calorie intake and daily physical activities is necessary to achieving fitness and an increased sense of their wellbeing.

The goals of our physical fitness & nutrition wellness intervention for healthy youths is to reduce chronic diseases by targeting the four main risk facts: diet, physical activity levels, tobacco and alcohol use. We seek to continue to establish a comprehensive sports, health and wellness program which will address the following components of wellness: physical, social, intellectual and emotional. Our athletic and wellness coordinator collaborated with many different health and recreation departments to develop and provide the fitness and wellness program needs for our program and each participant.