Empowering Healthy Kids Blog

A new program launched in conjunction with MEND and the Victorian Government:

Kids-Life! is a Victorian Government Initiative to enrich the physical, social and emotional wellbeing of children. For the first time in Central West Gippsland, the project is offering free healthy lifestyle courses for children aged 5 to 12 years and their parents and/or carers. Once registered, families participate in either an individualised or group support program. The group sessions by are facilitated by qualified MEND (Mind, Exercise, Nutrition…Do it!) trainers, commencing mid July 2009.

In the MEND program families take part in fun 2-hour sessions, twice a week for 10 weeks.  Accurate health information provided by health professionals supports families to improve their eating and exercise habits, thereby improving children’s fitness, physical activity levels, nutrition and self-esteem. Thanks to funding from the Department of Human Services, three courses with 12 places worth up to $800 per child are being offered to families completely free of charge on a first come first served basis.

The MEND Program is an evidence based healthy lifestyle program for children above their ideal weight and their families. Rather than focusing on weight loss, the Program uses a practical interactive learning approach to teach children and parents weight management skills. This includes inspiring families to adopt a healthier lifestyle and enjoy preparing and eating healthy foods as well as reading food labels and healthy shopping on a budget.  There are also simple but exciting sessions which focus on making exercise fun again – especially for children who are not fans of traditional school sports.

This entry (Permalink) was posted on Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 at 11:47 am and is filed under australia, funding, getting active. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response , or trackback from your own site.