Wellness well done

Summer means time away from school, homework assignments and
written tests. Studies show that some students actually “backslide”
in some learning levels over the two-month break from regular
classwork and reading assignments.
Over the same summer break, we might also wonder what might
happen to young students’ eating habits and healthy exercise
routines. A recent Grand Jury report applauded local schools for
improving healthy eating, nutrition and exercise programs. Let’s
hope summer vacation means more outdoor exercise, big salads and
colorful garden fruits and vegetables and not extra sweets, french
fries and TV watching.
Childhood obesity, diabetes and poor exercise routines have
become national epidemics, costing individual enjoyment of more
full lives as well as broader social costs of lifelong
disabilities, disease and higher health care costs.
This newspaper has been chronicling the many efforts of local
school leaders and volunteer parents in planting school gardens and
adding new nutrition programs inside the schools. We also have
reported on the School Garden Network of Sonoma County, iGrow,
Healthy Kids of Sonoma County and the organized projects of the
county’s Health Action convened by the Board of Supervisors last
year.
We concur with, and welcome, the work and report by our Grand
Jury in pointing out good work by local government agencies when it
finds it. (Equally, we place high value on their other
“watchdog” efforts completed annually by the citizens’ jury.)
Participants of all ages in these wellness and nutrition
projects should feel extra encouraged by the Grand Jury report that
“found ample evidence that positive changes are happening as a
result of creative and cooperative work among parents, teachers, in
our public schools!” (A copy of the complete 2009-10 Sonoma County
Grand Jury report is inserted in this issue of the newspaper. Also
Staff Writer Nathan Wright interviewed several local educators
about the report’s findings, also published in this newspaper.)
Like so many other things “green,” organic, sustainable,
artisan, fresh, diverse and always healthy, Sonoma County is again
leading the nation. This time we are raising healthier students and
curtailing childhood obesity and related illnesses. We are taking
extra pride in creating healthy communities, in partnership with
local farmers, volunteers, educators, health care providers and
private benefactors.
The “growing, eating and sharing” campaign called iGrow has been
a tremendous success, with much of it developed as school campus
and neighborhood based. Non-profits like the Redwood Empire Food
Bank, School Garden Network, Daily Acts, Ceres Community Project
and others have been joined by underwriting business partners. Some
of these are Kaiser Permanente, Exchange Bank, St. Joseph Health
System, United Winegrowers, Whole Foods, Medlock Ames,
Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates and many others.
Getting an earlier start than most of the rest of the nation’s
communities, the county’s department of health and board of
supervisors launched the Health Action multi-year initiative in
response to the national health care crisis. This was a year before
the recent debate in the U.S. Congress over “Obamacare.”
The countywide project identified two major targets for
improving the health of our communities and reducing overall health
care costs.
A blue ribbon panel took aim at increasing access to primary
health care for more people. And on a more grassroots level, Health
Action leaders launched a series of projects aimed at people taking
charge of their own health, wellness and nutrition. The first of
these was iWalk, closely followed by iGrow. Again, almost all of
these projects involved local schools, students and multiple
generations working, playing, planting and growing together.
In its recent report on healthy school habits, the Grand Jury
recommended school districts “continue and expand communications”
with their communities on wellness policies and the impacts of
these policies on the lives of children. “Parents play a pivotal
role by incorporating these changes so that they become lifetime
habits.”
Nowhere did the jury say “take the summer off.” So let’s keep
wellness in our daily routines
— Rollie Atkinson