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McIntire has changed her own eating habits, giving up potato chips and shedding 15 pounds since last year. Tall, slender and a youthful 56, McIntire guides Northeast with a firm but loving hand. She greets students by name each morning, helps with untied shoelaces, and offers hugs. And she scolds kids who have messy uniforms or are rude to their classmates. School hallways feature signs about good food choices and being healthy, and a poster about the Alliance's gold award is prominently displayed near the school office. The Alliance established a Healthy Schools' program in 2006, with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It helps schools that want to become healthier and meet alliance criteria for winning medals. More than 500 schools have won bronze and silver awards. Those gold medals are tougher to come by. Memorial High School in West New York, N.J., was the first school in the country ever to win a gold. Last year, Northeast became the first elementary school to do that. Rio Hondo Elementary in suburban Los Angeles is the latest to win it. Ginny Ehrlich, chief executive officer for the Alliance for a Healthier Generation says of Northeast, "They truly stand out." The school has done a remarkable job of making "healthy eating and activity the norm." Since Northeast is a magnet school, students have to apply to attend, although they don't need to test in. Besides committing to the healthy mindset, parents must volunteer 26 hours at the school each year.
"There certainly are people who are much more invested than others, but we have gotten so much positive feedback from parents," McIntire said. In her first year, McIntire recruited students by posting advertisements in the local newspaper. "I don't need to do that anymore," she said. For the current school year, there were more than 80 applications for 48 kindergarten slots. "We have people calling everyday wondering if their child can get in," she said. Shelbi Black says Northeast has had an "amazing, life-altering" influence on her kids, 10-year-old Kayla and Carter, 5. They've come home requesting fruits and vegetables they used to reject. Carter was thrilled to make frozen fruit shish kebobs in school, and Kayla "was so excited the other day because she made her goal in running the mile and she was so happy that she knocked down her time from last year," Black said. Tim Mills' mom, Charlyn Hester, says since the school adopted the healthy program, her family has switched from eating lots of convenience foods to lean grass-fed beef and lots of fruits and vegetables. Her oldest daughter, a recent Northeast graduate, has slimmed down and Hester says she thinks Tim and his 11-year-old sister will, too. Hester herself has lost almost 100 pounds since 2009. The family's grocery bills are higher, but Hester, a freelance writer, says she and her husband, a security officer, have decided it's worth spending more on food and forgoing things like a new car, for their kids' health. "It's not necessarily a financial hardship, but it's certainly an investment," she said. Health department officials say they have not calculated obesity rates for children in Danville and the county. Psychologist Richard Elghammer, who works with a large rural health clinic in Danville, says about one-third of the kids treated there are overweight or obese
-- similar to the national average. National data suggest that the county's obesity rate alone for adults, about 32 percent, is also similar to the national average. About two-thirds of adults are overweight. But Vermilion County rates of obesity-related illness including heart disease are higher, and more than 80 percent of county residents don't eat government-recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables, according to national surveys. Dr. Thomas Halloran, an internist who treats adults in Danville, has been working to provide financial support and resources to Northeast, through his medical group, Carle Clinic. Halloran says many of his patients have diabetes and other illnesses tied to a lifetime of obesity and poor health habits. By instilling healthy habits in kids starting in kindergarten, the school is making an important contribution to the community's health, Halloran said. ___ Online: Alliance for a Healthier Generation: Northeast's Facebook page:
http://www.healthiergeneration.org/
http://on.fb.me/oAutYo
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