Healthy Habits for Life

Healthy Habits for Life is a grant-giving program of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas Foundation. It is offered to help schools address the current childhood obesity issue in Kansas and the nation. Healthy Habits for Life recognizes that at a time when finding solutions for childhood obesity and improving the overall health and wellness of our students is at the forefront of our state’s needs, school budgets are tighter than ever. With the program, they hope to fill some of the funding gaps by providing financial resources to schools that want to create programs to help their students.

In December, Healthy Habits for Life announced the recipients of these grants. Sharon Covert and Beth Robinett are two educators from our district that were among these recipients!

Sharon Covert, a physical education teacher at Tecumseh North, was awarded 1,000 through the Healthy Habits for Life Grant. With this grant, she decided to build a Warrior Fitness course for her students. Ms. Covert says that the students have begged for more activities like this course and have shown that they genuinely are interested in the movement by being entirely focused on what they are doing while completing stations. “Students are working on their problem-solving skills, cardiovascular fitness, upper body strength and much more,” says Ms. Covert.

The Warrior Fitness equipment is very versatile. Not only can different courses be made out of the material but the mats can be separated and used individually to focus on specific skills. The course can be arranged according to grade and skill level of the participant.

Another recipient of the $1000 Healthy Habit for Life Grant was Beth Robinett, a counselor at Shawnee Height Middle School. Ms. Robinett applied for the grant when she and the counseling department recognized that students could have too much energy in the classroom and some of them also have a lot to deal with emotionally. “Studies show that when a student can burn energy by using something like a treadmill or stationary bike they open up more. Students begin to talk more about what is going on in their life, feel more comfortable, and at the same time they are expending the energy that was making them wriggly in the classroom” says Ms. Robinett.

A treadmill was first considered to help these students. However, with the size of a treadmill, she was concerned that they would not be able to place it in an area that students would feel comfortable using it. Instead they found stationary bikes with large desks attached. There will be a bike for each of the counseling offices. They will be able to wheel the bikes from room to room if necessary and even to a classroom if deemed fit.

School nurses, teachers, counselors, principals, and other administrators have unique opportunities to reach out and teach students about healthy choices. Congratulations to Sharon Covert and Beth Robinett for receiving the Healthy Habits for Life Grant from Blue Cross and Blue Shield. We thank you for leading our students in making healthy habits for life!