A Team Effort Aimed at Getting Kids to Eat More Fruits and Vegetables

and Afton-Lakeland elementary schools are partnering up and the Lakeview Foundation, to take part in a program designed to increase fruit and vegetable intake among students.

The program kicks off at Lily Lake today and at Afton-Lakeland on May 2 with 45- minute, high-energy, interactive school assemblies led by Radio Disney. The program makes an effort to reach kids and inspire them to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables every day.

Students will use fruit and vegetable trackers to record their consumption each day for four weeks.

“Kids consume about half of their daily calories during the school day, so school nutrition is a critical component in addressing the obesity epidemic,” Mary Brainerd, HealthPartners President and CEO stated in a news release.

The four-week school challenge is part of HealthPartners yumPower initiative to improve nutrition, and early results from other schools show that the program is working.

The yumPower School Challenge leads to way for the new , PowerUP, with the goal of bringing together children, parents, schools and the community to make it easy for kids to fuel up, be active and have fun.

“Our goal is to make it easy, rewarding and fun for kids to eat well and be active, so we can improve our children’s long-term health prospects,” said Marna Canterbury, MS, RD, Lakeview Director of Health and Wellness.