The YEAH! Campaign
Fresh From Florida
Between super-sized meals, video games, and an automobile-driven society, staying healthy is a challenge today. In addition, youth are bombarded with messages encouraging them to eat at fast-food restaurants, play computer games, and buy snack foods. Adults and kids don’t always receive the information they need about the benefits of having a healthy weight and lifestyle.
The facts about childhood obesity are increasingly scary. For example, obesity in children has tripled in the past two years. That means that one in five children today is overweight! These children often suffer from Type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure--problems generally associated with adults.
4-H youth are taking action through the YEAH! Campaign, which provides this much-needed information and supports the role that everyone can have in becoming advocates for a healthy lifestyle.
"By helping young people to be a part of the solution with YEAH! [Youth Empowered Ambassadors for Health], youth become empowered to lead by example and action. They can help improve lives of individuals and create change within their youth organizations, schools and communities," said Dr. Joy Jordan, 4-H Youth Development Specialist, University of Florida.
In June 2006, local 4-H youths--ranging from 13 to 18 years of age--joined other teens from around the state at the Youth Ambassador Summit in Orlando, Florida. Participants were given tools to enable them to be advocates for healthy lifestyles among their peers in their local youth organizations and within their communities. Youths received training and resources that showcased youth ambassador models and programs for increasing physical activity, making healthy food choices, and reducing screen time.
The youth and adults that attended the Summit were able to mentor and train over four hundred of their peers on these healthy programs during workshops at the 2006 4-H Congress held in Gainesville, Florida, in July. Youth teach and learn four main goals:
- Increase lifelong physical activity,
- Increase lifelong healthy eating,
- Decrease total screen time (TV, video games, etc), and
- Create youth ambassadors for healthy lifestyle leadership and peer mentoring.
Young people across Florida and throughout the country are now starting grassroots campaigns to ensure that cafeterias and vending machines offer healthy food choices. Other groups are focusing on daily physical education in schools, and it works!
