The 4-H Healthy Living Challenge: Encouraging Healthier Choices

For more than a century, New Hampshire 4-H Youth Development programs have recognized health as one of the four H's of the well-known 4-H clover leaf (joining head, heart, and hands).

With the epidemic of childhood obesity as a backdrop and $50,000 from the Wal-Mart Foundation for Healthy Living and the National 4-H Council, the New Hampshire 4-H program is boosting its statewide commitment to youth wellness with its new 4-H Healthy Living Challenge.

According to Extension 4-H specialist Paula Gregory, "The Healthy Living Challenge will link youth and their families, community wellness groups, 4-H volunteers and after-school staff, and land-grant university experts to mobilize young people and get them excited about healthy living. The program tackles nutrition, physical fitness and safety in three interrelated phases."

• Ready, set, go provides opportunities for youth to learn how to be healthy and fit, discover nutritious foods, and become engaged in physically active games.


• Keep going challenges young people to reach a daily goal of 5-2-1-0: five fruits and vegetables, spending no more than two hours watching TV or using electronic games, one hour or more of exercise, and eliminating sugary drinks and snacks.


• Go public involves young people spreading the word about healthy choices, becoming active locally to foster creative approaches to individual, family, and community wellness. Many 4-H youth will be showcasing their experiences through posters, speeches, demonstrations, and media productions.

"The project will create a statewide 4-H action plan for future healthy-living programs," says Wendy Brock, UNH Extension 4-H program leader. "We hope the plan and the activities that emerge from it will trigger the young people involved to create their own long-term action plans for health."

Project kicks off

The 4-H Healthy Living Challenge was launched in June during the annual four-day 4-H Teen Conference on the UNH campus." Two-thirds of conference workshops featured health and fitness topics. Teen participants received pedometers and a pledge card challenging them to eat nutritious meals, get lots of exercise, and make decisions that help them stay healthy," says Gregory.

"We used the same approach--workshops, pedometers and pledge cards--at the Northeast Regional SET (Science, Engineering and Technology) Forum and a 4-day career tour to New York City.

"During the Career Tour, 42 participating teens and chaperones collectively logged 1,037 miles as they walked city streets learning about careers in the fashion industry. Many 'trained' for the trip by increasing their daily walking during weeks preceding the tour," says Gregory.

More Healthy Living Challenge activities

• In Hillsborough, Grafton and Merrimack counties, gardening programs reached more than 250 children working alongside UNH Cooperative Extension volunteers. For example, at the Massabesic Audubon Center in Auburn, children from inner-city 4-H afterschool and summer programs participated in the 4-H Green Thumb Team initiative. Activities included planning, planting, tending and harvesting theme gardens and individual yardstick-size beds. The Green Thumb teams helped harvest their crops, bringing some to their own tables and donating the remaining 1700 pounds to the New Hampshire Food Bank.


• In August, military youth affected by family member's deployment participated in an Operation: Military Kids (OMK) You're the Chef camp, where they learned about many topics related to food and meal preparation, including nutrition, food purchasing, food safety, meal planning, and cooking techniques. During the weekend, campers prepared four different meals and also enjoyed recreational and social activities such as hiking, nature study, and team-building games.


• 4-H Microwave Magic and Up for the Challenge: Lifetime Fitness, Healthy Decisions are two wellness curricula being rolled out this spring in afterschool programs and 4-H clubs across the state in conjunction with our Nutrition Connections staff.

"The Walmart Foundation is committed to improving the lives of young people and the communities in which they live," says Margaret McKenna, Walmart Foundation president. "The Foundation is proud to support the inventive programs New Hampshire developed for 4-H and the impact those programs will have on the health of both participants and their communities."

Learn more

Stayed tuned to our 4-H events calendar Find upcoming health-and-fitness based events.

If you work with youth and want to get involved in the Healthy Living Challenge, call the 4-H Youth Development educator in your county.

NH HEALthy Schools Initiative Learn more about this UNH Cooperative Extension initiative to improve New Hampshire schools' nutrition and fitness environments.

Posted January 20, 2010