Striving for WINS

When local doctors estimated that 30 to 40 percent of their child patients were obese, something needed to be done.

"They see childhood obesity as a huge problem in this county," said Carrie Wilcox, community health educator at Jay County Hospital. "They estimated about 30 to 40 percent of the kids they see in their office are obese, not just overweight, but obese."

Obesity, defined as being overweight to a point that can cause adverse health effects, has achieved epidemic status in the United States and continues to grow worse every year.

Wilcox, medical practitioners, the Jay Community Center and concerned citizens formed a task force to tackle the issue, eventually forming the Wellness IN Schools (WINS) program.

The program however, was nearly doomed before it ever started.

The hospital submitted an application for a federal grant for startup money, but was denied its request.

With the program floating out there but no financial backing, a not-for-profit agency stepped up.

"It's something that affects the whole community," said Pam Bennett of the Jay County Hospital Foundation, which used its fundraising campaign to back the WINS program. "It's such an awareness program on making healthy lifestyle choices. The program had a lot of appeal."

Wilcox said without the foundation's help, the program likely wouldn't have happened.

"After we were denied the first grant we wrote, we were extremely concerned as to how we could pull this off without any type of funding," she said. "We were looking at other grant avenues, but the help from the hospital foundation has really made this program possible."

With the money to back it and the combined efforts of Jay County Hospital, Jay Schools and the Jay County Community Center, the program kicked off earlier this month.

The program targets the freshman class at Jay County High School, with speakers and activities that are reinforcing lessons of fitness, good nutrition and wellness with the students.

"What we looked at when we chose the freshmen, there are already a couple programs in place in the elementary schools ... so we felt with the younger grades, there was plenty of that already being done," Wilcox said. "At freshman age, they're starting to make choices independently. It's not what mom's buying at the grocery or fixing every night for supper.

"They actually are starting to be able to choose for themselves," she said. "We felt that was a really good age group to target."

Education is being combined with activity, as one major piece of WINS this year is the Walk Across America contest being waged between three Freshman Academy teams.

With the money from the hospital foundation, students were given a pedometer to track the number of steps they take each day. Those steps are being added up for each team to see which can cross the United States first.

"It promotes fitness and it also promotes awareness of fitness," said Carolyn Carducci, director of development at JCC. "Walking is a huge benefit. ... You're not going to be playing Division I ... football when you're 50. Walking is something anyone of any age can do."

The competition and weekly presentations are more than just out-of-classroom experiences, too, as the freshman academy staff is utilizing WINS back in the normal day-to-day lessons.

"(The teachers) are kind of taking the wellness initiative to heart as well and they're constantly, every time we meet them, coming up with new ideas of how we can infuse the WINS program into their teaching," Wilcox said. "It's going to be talked about in English, in math, science. It's not going to be out of sight, out of mind."

"What the teachers decided is that the course we're going to chart out to walk is the places and events that they've studied in their English classes," said Dolphus Stephens, Freshman Academy coordinator, of a classroom connection with the Walk Across America contest. "The teachers have kind of charted the course across America by the way of the books, the stories they've read.

"They're trying to do things that tie in," he added. "The teachers are trying to plan an interdisciplinary lesson that uses what (WINS) teaches."

And so far, the students and staff are taking WINS to heart.

"I think it's a great community initiative," said Jay Schools superintendent Tim Long. "It really shows that people in the community support things that are going on in the school."

"The kids are excited. The teachers are excited. It's been fun and we started in earnest," Stephens said. "I think there's some real interest, not just, 'Yeah I'm going to do this.'"

"We've had nothing but positive feedback from both the staff and the students," Wilcox said. "They seem extremely excited about it. ... We try to keep it really interactive and fun."

Although still within its first month, Wilcox said she thinks the WINS program will be a staple for the Freshman Academy, since the program is reproducible from year to year and - outside of the pedometers that will be returned at the end of the year - has no annual costs since speakers come on a volunteer basis.

As far as results go, Wilcox isn't setting any lofty goals for changing the obesity problem overnight.

"I think any reduction is a success because if you listen to the news at all or of the national statistics, they've basically described obesity as an epidemic in this country and they don't see it getting any better," she said. "Any maintenance of where we are now or shift in the opposite direction, I think would be surpassing any type of goal we could set."[[In-content Ad]]