The FIT4FUN Reader
Recognizing that Kentucky is at a massive crossroads, with dire consequences on one side and a productive, healthy state on the other, the creative team of the Kentucky Children’s Health and Fitness Fund has spent two years developing a nationally unique, multi-media, multi-lingual communication project to teach wellness to very young children and their families, based on best practices from dozens of experts around the world, including those specializing in early childhood education, nutrition, wellness, medicine, education, marketing, health journalism and nonprofit collaboration.
Our campaign highlights a new, positive lever for parental involvement leading to action and eventually, to health-ownership change. Our curriculum is standards-based and FIT4FUN is used during the school day and again at home. Our Reader reaches students and their parents and caregivers with distinct, devoted pages in each edition. Our innovative model combats a massive inequality of access to current health education across the state. Education is the key – attitudes do not just shift, people change their behavior based on perceptions of improved personal benefit.
Instead of a boycott of the current disconnected hodge-podge of efforts, we’re mounting a “pro-cott,” strategically investing in the kind of uniform early education that will advance social and economic standards by ensuring a basic level of equality of access, at the very least to education.
We’re trying to seed young students with a new mindset, knowing that it will take years to fully integrate and blossom. But we want young children to begin to see themselves as in control of and responsible for their own health. We want to awaken a sense that families have every right to real, nutritious food and for the food industry to begin to see that will as a force to be reckoned with. This identity shift from “me” to “we” is the cornerstone of real and lasting social change.
We are diverse and passionate community supporters, thought-partners, stakeholders and friends, connected to devise a commonly beneficial and powerful vision and strategy for change by nurturing relationships, encouraging innovation at all levels and constantly moving together as one. We are wide open to people and ideas. We have learned the importance of taking intelligent risks to find what works. We openly share our findings and work product.
We want everyone to know that from Day One of public school in Kentucky, and for every day forward, children will now learn how to be smart about making healthy choices that lead to a lifetime of productive wellness.
We want businesses to know that Kentucky is a great place in which to invest, because all Kentucky students are now headed toward that lifetime of productive wellness as creative problem-solvers.
We want foundations and other funders to see that Kentucky is in the midst of a health revolution, declaring itself on the path to being not just a model state, but the healthiest state in the nation, with all invested research and programming dollars very well spent.
All of us working on this innovative program believe that all children can live a happy, healthy productive life if they can discover the Four Pillars to a Healthy Life: Education, Physical Fitness, Nutrition and Creative Intelligence.
We make it possible for all children to get there by using their natural process:
Imagine, Play, Learn Grow.
Within the Four Pillars we emphasize the primary role of the family as most important to child development and we consider ourselves partners with every Kentucky family raising children of all ages. We are partners in delivering your message, to reinforce the common-sense values of living a healthy lifestyle.
FIT4FUN is:
- A grassroots effort to renew and support family responsibility for wellness education
- Delivered for 2010-2011 at no charge to all K-3 students (approximate value $1.1 million) four print Readers that cover entire Practical Living curriculum for K-3, as defined by the Kentucky Department of Education, with fully annotated online Teacher Guide for ease of planning
- Written by an accredited curriculum-writing team that includes authors and artists
- Created, printed and distributed by the Kentucky Children’s Health and Fitness Fund, a 501c3 nonprofit organization based in Oldham County, Kentucky
How FIT4FUN is different:
- Holistic approach focuses on Four Pillars of a Child’s Balanced Life: education, nutrition, physical activity and creative intelligence
- Each child gets his or her own subscription for classroom then home use
- Prevention model emphasizes and supports family responsibility for lifestyle choices
- Messages and resources provided for effective parenting
- Diverse characters provide fun role models who make smart choices about staying healthy
- User-friendly pages and multiple activities encourage creative expression and intelligence
FIT4FUN is created by:
Martha Gehringer, MA, Transylvania University; Faculty member, Foundations of Liberal Arts, and Writing, Rhetoric, and Communications Programs
Robbin Goodin, MS, (Bellarmine University)
Mary Goral, PhD, (Bellarmine University)
Regina MJ Kyle, PhD, (Harvard University,) The Kyle Group Limited
Jessie Martinez, BS, Graphic Design, MBA, (Xavier University)
Eddie Sun, BS, Design, Art, Architecture, Planning, (University of Cincinnati)