TYPE: Sport Collaborative Partnership / Erasmus Plus
DATES: January 2019 – September 2020.
LINK: Website – Facebook Page
PARTNERS:
Fit for kids- Denmark
Aventura Marão Clube-Portugal
L’Orma – Italy
DESCRIPTION
The Fit For Kids Project was founded in 2007 in Copenhagen in order to combat the childhood obesity and improve the quality of lives and health of overweight, obese and inactive children and teenagers. It was created by a team of nutritionists, sports instructors, psychologists and pedagogists, and provides support for launching courses dedicated to children between the age of 7 and 13 who experience and showcase discomfort caused by the lack of physical exercise, or being overweight and inactive. The courses are held by volunteer instructors and they are structured in two weekly meetings during which children perform specific recreational-motor activities and families receive nutritional guidance and instructions aimed at a healthy lifestyle.
The FitforKids Program is a community based multi-component lifestyle intervention aimed at increasing the overall health of the family as well as reducing BMI and body fat of the children.
The FitforKids program consists of five elements: Nutritional advice, Physical training for both children and parents, Parent Coaching, a Motivational Program and Social Events.
FitforKids is completely free for the families.
NUTRITIONAL ADVICE SESSION: We offer nutritional advice sessions to all FitforKids families. The Nutrional Advice Sessions are performed at the families’ homes by two FitforKids Nutritional Advice Experts. All FitforKids Nutritional Advice follow the guidelines of the Danish Health Authority, however our ability to communicate these in an easily relatable and understandable way to our target group is a core competence of the FitforKids Nutritional Advice Experts.
PHYSICAL EXERCISE: FitforKids offers two training sessions per week: One hour training for children only on a weekday afternoon after school; and 1½ hours training session including weighing on Saturday mornings, where at least one parent is required to participate and siblings are welcome. Usually all trainings take place in the local school gym-hall or in a local fitness center. The FitforKids training program is a mix of crossfit, aerobics and classical school yard games.
PARENTAL COACHING: It is the parents that have the primary responsibility for giving their children a healthy lifestyle. But it is not an easy task to secure a healthy lifestyle for a child. And it can give a lot of discussions and even arguments when parents try to reduce sugar intake or promote physical exercise. And as parents with overweight issues it can be difficult to feel like a credible role model.
The FitforKids Program is designed to support and help parents with implementing a healthy lifestyle for their children. We aid parents, who think that it is hard to motivate their children to exercise and to cut down on the serving sizes or on candy. With seminars, books, sms services and a “hotline”, we give advice on how to handle conflict and complaining. We also do individual coaching after having an agreement with the families.
MOTIVATIONAL PROGRAM: FitforKids Instructors are trained in creating fun and effective exercise classes and to establish a safe space for children to learn about the abilities of their bodies and experience the joy of exercising. With workshops, emails, weekly text messages and books, we are dedicated to give children a positive vision of themselves, their life and potentials.
SOCIAL EVENTS: As part of the FitforKids program, we arrange excursions, visits to parks or jogging, or we may invite our FitforKids families to a seminar or a cozy afternoon visit to a FitforKids team in another city.
