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| Louise Cole Anderson and Sharon Brassard of the South Berwick Recreation Department and Natalie Gould of Eliot Community Service Department receive Redy awards from Sue Patterson of the Choose To Be Healthy Partnership (courtesy photo) |
SOUTH BERWICK & ELIOT –
Sharon Brassard and Louise Cole Anderson of South Berwick
Recreation and Natalie Gould of Eliot CSD received “Redy” awards at the recent
Choose To Be Healthy Annual Meeting. All three serve on the Choose To Be
Healthy Community Health Action Team that implemented an obesity prevention
program called Let’s Go 5210 throughout the Eliot and South Berwick community
this past year.
Choose To Be Healthy received a prestigious American Medical
Association Healthy Living grant of $4000 last fall. The goal of the Action
Team was to provide training to community partners and have partners implement
strategies that promote healthier eating and more physical activity for
children. Partners included Eliot Elementary School, Central School, Marshwood
Great Works School, Little Buddies Family Child Care, South Berwick Recreation,
Eliot CSD and Great Works Family Practice.
The Let’s Go 5210 model has four important daily messages:
five or more fruits and vegetables, two hours or less recreational screen time,
one hour or more of physical activity and zero sugary drinks with an emphasis
on drinking water and low fat or skim milk.
The strategies chosen by the partners were providing healthy
choices for snacks and celebrations and to provide opportunities for children
to get physical activity every day.
A survey assessing parents’ knowledge and implementation of
Let’s Go 5210 strategies was distributed in May with 172 parents providing
feedback. Sixty seven percent are familiar with the Let’s Go 5210 message and
78 percent have implemented healthy behaviors at home.
Choose To Be Healthy (CTBH) is one of twenty-seven local
Healthy Maine Partnerships that work to reduce the incidence of chronic
diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, chronic lung disease
and substance abuse. CTBH staff, members and partners work in the towns of
Berwick, Eliot, Kittery, North Berwick, South Berwick, Wells, Ogunquit,
Lebanon, and York.
Choose To Be Healthy is largely funded with tobacco
settlement money from the Fund for a Healthy Maine through the Maine DHHS
(Maine CDC and Office of Substance Abuse) and DOE. Additional financial and
in-kind support comes from federal and state grants, foundations, local organizations
and our lead agency, York Hospital. For more information, please contact Sue
Patterson at 439-9473 or visit our website at www.ctbh.org.
The AMA Foundation is committed to improving the health of
Americans through philanthropic support of quality programs in public health
and medical education. Visit www.amafoundation.org
to learn more.
