Nutrition, Health and Fitness Festival at Highland Elementary School

Announcement submitted by West Contra Costa Unified School District:

The West Contra Costa Unified School District’s Food Services Department will host its twenty second annual Nutrition, Health and Fitness Festival at Highland Elementary School on Thursday, April 23, 2015 from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Food Services will be celebrating Earth week, which focuses on environmental responsibility and kicking off California Thursdays in WCCUSD with a focus of serving healthy and freshly prepared meals with California grown fruits and vegetables.

The theme for this year’s event is “Cooking it up fresh and healthy with fruits and vegetables for wellness California Style”, which aims to promote school wellness by empowering students and their families to adopt healthy lifestyles and to take initiative to be physically active and nutritionally responsible.

Nearly 10 million children in the United States are now seriously overweight and obese. An alarming trend in pediatric obesity is leading a dramatic increase of type 2 diabetes and other health problems among children. There is no question that good nutrition and fitness will improve children’s learning ability to achieve their full potential.

West Contra Costa Unified School District embraces the link between health and education. This year’s event will feature a healthy cooking segment for students, the Kaiser Cardia Heart presenting a fun and educational performance on wellness, Nutrition education on fruits and vegetables which will include a Farmer’s Market tour California grown, local fruit and vegetable taste testing and promotion of physical activities through our Fitness for

Wellness events such as Zumba/Dance, the Restaurant relay, the Farm To Table Relay, the Wheel of Nutrition and much more.

Highland Elementary School is located at 2829 Moyers Road, Richmond, CA 94806. For further information on the event, please contact Barbara Jellison, Director of Food Services Department, West Contra Costa Unified School District at (510) 307 - 4580.

Photo via Shutterstock