2016 COMMUNITY BENEFIT REPORT
Building Confidence
Summer Camp Promotes Healthy Lifestyles
Olayemi and her twin sister, Olayemisi, both 14, participated in Children’ s Hospital Colorado’ s Camp Champions the summer of 2016 at the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center, after being referred from Children’ s Colorado’ s Lifestyle Medicine program.
Olayemi and Olayemisi say that, because of camp, they eat more vegetables, stretch every day and are more active, always trying to“ fill the bar” on their activity tracker.“ You fill the bar on your activity tracker when you get over an hour of exercise a day. We compete with each other to see who will fill the bar first,” says Olayemi.
Children who are overweight and obese are at a greater risk for summer weight gain. So as part of the goal of obesity prevention and health promotion, Children’ s Colorado launched the Camp Champions program in 2015 to address accelerated summer weight gain in youth. This weeklong program for underserved, low income youth incorporates activities and curriculum from existing programs to engage youth in continuous physical activity while learning about goal setting, teamwork, nutrition and healthy lifestyles.
“ The campers are exposed to a variety of physical activities and hands-on cooking lessons throughout the week,” says Laura Retzer, Camp Champions coordinator.
A typical day includes morning stretching, goal setting, fun physical activities like capture the flag or“ Olympics”, lessons on sleep, stress management and healthy eating, yoga, gardening, cooking and much more. Camp participants log an average of 19,272 steps per day at camp.
“ The goal is to engage youth in healthy lifestyle activities in a fun way that they and their parents or caregivers will positively respond to and continue after camp ends,” says Eve Kutchman, Healthy Kids strategist.
Thanks to sponsorship from Transamerica, campers attend the program for a nominal fee, and receive physical activity trackers and workbooks they keep after camp ends.
“ There are a lot of recipes we learned at camp that we make at home now, like Asian salad with chicken, bean salad and turkey wraps with avocado,” describes Olayemisi.“ But my favorite are the pancakes— healthy pancakes. We used whole wheat oats and orange juice instead of milk. And we got to flip them!”
Camp participants log an average of
19,272 steps
per day at camp
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