Three grants awarded in Fort Bend to fight obesity in children

UnitedHealthcare, a UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) company, has awarded UnitedHealth HEROES grants in Fort Bend County for youth-led projects that address childhood obesity.

Missouri City Middle School

Missouri City Middle School received $1,000 for its Move It! Club, which promotes health and wellness at the school. They plan a walking program with their neighboring elementary schools: Hunters Glen Elementary and Glover Elementary. The middle-school students will take responsibility for delivering the program – volunteering their time after school, organizing the schedule, putting together the materials, creating the lessons and teaching the classes.

Quail Valley Elementary

Quail Valley Elementary School received $1,000 to build on last year’s successful project by The Fort Bend Falcons are Healthy Heroes, where Special Olympics athletes learned the value of a healthy lifestyle and good eating habits.

Positive outcomes of last year’s project included two of the softball athletes losing a combined weight of 25 pounds and athletes requesting more healthy snacks and food when traveling to a competition.

This year, the athletes plan an education program on childhood obesity and will distribute brochures and information at the major Special Olympics track event that will include more than 200 athletes and around 800 friends and family in Fort Bend County.

Shape Up Sugar Land

Shape Up Sugar Land received $1,000 for its Walking for Health project, where the Youth Committee will conduct an after-school program for kids in Armstrong Elementary School.

The young people on the Youth Committee will be responsible for delivering and implementing the program – meeting with these at-risk kids at least once a month to educate them about the importance of being physically active and leading a healthy lifestyle. They will provide the kids with walking logs and encourage them to walk daily and record their minutes of activity.

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Posted by FortBendStar on Feb 7 2013. Filed under City News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.