Town promotes healthy lifestyles for kids
By Heather Mandelkehr
Carrboro Commons Staff Writer
While a national debate over childhood obesity looms and the sales of electronic goods skyrocket, blame and pleas for change are levied in every direction. Carrboro is prepared to face the challenge of encouraging children to undertake a healthier lifestyle.
Staff photo by Heather Mandelkehr
Anita Jones-McNair, director of the Carrboro Recreation and Parks Department, said that the department offers a wide variety of children’s programs for kids to achieve a healthier lifestyle. With the pressures of the “technical age” and a national obesity rate higher than ever, she said that programs need to appeal to children – competing with electronics – and that there are still children not being served.
“It is going to take all of the community to work on this issue that is growing,” Jones-McNair said.
Along with recreational activities, Jones-McNair highlights some overall health-related programs available in Carrboro, including a project where children can plant vegetable gardens in local parks and a sequence of cooking classes for children at the Carrboro Century Center.
Jones-McNair said that a main goal of these initiatives is to get parents involved in a healthy lifestyle to help themselves and to teach their kids.
“As long as children are in a community, there needs to be activities for them,” said Jones-McNair.
In 2007, Carrboro was designated as a 2007-2010 Fit Community by the Fit Community Project, a joint effort of the North Carolina Health and Wellness Trust Fund and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina that awards these designations and funding after an extensive application process.
According to the Fit Community Project Web site, Carrboro’s more than 200 Recreation and Parks Department programs as well as the proximity of green space to homes give the town this distinction.
Jones-McNair concurred with this description, and cited the available physical activities, the efforts of the school district, the types of businesses, the nature of the town being accessible by foot and bike and the coordination of programs within all of Orange County as examples of Carrboro’s efforts to promote healthy living.
“We try to work very closely with Orange County facilities,” Jones-McNair said.
The Orange County Partnership for Young Children, a division of the statewide Smart Start program based in Chapel Hill, uses funding as part of its Healthy Kids Campaign to develop programs in conjunction with the Carrboro Recreation and Parks Department as well as the Chapel Hill-Carrboro YMCA, the Orange County Parks and Recreation Department, the Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation Department and the Triangle Sportsplex.
One such initiative is the Move It! scholarship program that provides financial assistance for children up to 5 years old and their families to participate in various physical activities, a program that started in July and is still enrolling families. (Advertising for the program is in the Carrboro Recreation and Parks Department online newsletter, which also includes information about other art and fitness programs provided by the department.)
Additionally, some Carrboro businesses provide opportunities for kids to embrace a healthy lifestyle.
The Carrboro Yoga Company offers a six-week children’s yoga program for kids age 4 to 7. This class has been offered on and off for the four and a half years the Carrboro Yoga Company has been open, mainly during the school year.
Owner Donia Robinson said the high-energy class helps kids teach themselves to relax and gain appreciation for their bodies. Additionally, she said the class is a good way for kids to burn energy and is an alternative for more traditional ballet or soccer programs.
“Kids these days are incredibly strict with their time,” Robinson said. “This class is not just teaching shapes and postures – it’s a little philosophy.”
Robinson, who used to teach the class herself, said that yoga’s self-calming benefits can help kids who have trouble sleeping.
The concept of children’s yoga is relatively new to the area, according to Robinson.
The Carrboro Yoga Company advertises for this program in the Weaver Street newsletters and on flyers, though Robinson said that “friends tell friends” and some of the parents are clients at the studio themselves. Most participants are from the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area.
Andrea Martinez teaches the hour-long yoga class, which incorporates breathing exercises, animal imagery and other games.
“Kids spend all day in school without making sound, moving or going outside,” Martinez said.
Martinez, an Ashtanga yoga teacher and former public school teacher from Savannah, Ga., said that the structured nature of an eight-hour school day necessitates the need for children to have active time. According to Martinez, Carrboro has a “forward-thinking nature” that provides available activities for children’s recreation as part of the school district as well as community programs and individual efforts.
“I love Carrboro,” Martinez said. “There’s a plethora of options.”
Heather Ross, whose 5-year-old son, Declan, attends the class, said the class helps him develop an appreciation for his body and helps him relax.
“I’d love for him to be a lifelong yogi,” said Ross, who also does yoga at the Carrboro Yoga Company, citing the benefits yoga does for his body before he starts a sport.
Ross lives in Pittsboro – she said that there are four or five students in the children’s yoga class from the Community Independent School in Pittsboro, which teaches overall “organic principles.”
Donia Robinson said that children’s recreational programs in Carrboro benefit from the community-oriented nature of the town and the natural confidence and willingness of kids.
“This town is really oriented to getting kids moving,” said Robinson. “If anywhere, Carrboro is really good about that.”
