Shape Up: Family Style

A Great Family Adventure!

Dr. Marilyn Rasmussen, SDSU Associate Professor,

Youth Development/4-H Specialist

     If you are new to the Shape Up: Family Style program, welcome! If you participated last year, we are pleased to welcome you back for another year.  We are looking forward to many fun family activities over the next nine months. The goal of Shape Up: Family Style is to help your family learn and practice healthy habits.

     Many aspects of modern life make it difficult to opt for healthy choices.  Children find much of their entertainment in front of a screen-a computer, video game or TV instead of engaging in physical activity.  Families are busy and they don't always take time to prepare healthy meals at home.  Fast food is convenient, fast and affordable, while fat-laden, sugar-rich snack foods are too readily available.

     To assist families in their goal of good physical health for every family member, Shape Up: Family Style offers opportunities to families to participate in fun physical activity sessions and tasty nutrition sessions.  National indicators suggest that the current generation of children are less physically active and more likely to consumer empty calories which puts them at-risk for many diseases and illnesses.  Childhood obesity, early onset of diabetes, and heart problems are some of the most threatening disorders.

     Healthy habits established early in life help us achieve better physical well-being throughout life.  Therefore, we invite parents and their children, ages 4 to 14, to become active participants in Shape Up: Family Style.  Children imitate what their parents do and if parents spend time with their children enjoying various types of physical activity, the children will most likely become active and stay active.  Shape Up offers family fitness sessions regularly, outdoors when it is nice, and indoors during the winter months.  In McLaughlin, we work with the public schools to use the gym, exercise equipment and the indoor pool.  In Brookings County, we partner with the Wellness Center at SDSU to use the gym, Body Motion equipment (strength training) and the indoor pool.

     Likewise, children will make better food choices if healthy foods are available and if parents emphasize the importance of good nutrition.  We offer three nutrition sessions each year so families can learn together to make healthy choices and to help children learn how to prepare foods that are both tasty and nutritious.  It's fun to taste what you make!

     Get Active! Make Healthy Food Choices! Your whole family will benefit!

     To inquire about Shape Up: Family Style please e-mail Kimberly Wilson-Sweebe, CYFAR Project Leader at kimberly.sweebe@sdstate.edu 

    This material is based upon work supported by the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under Agreement No. 2004-41520-01861.

     Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

updated: 08-22-07kws