Student ambassadors at dozens of Blue Zones Project Approved™ schools across Fort Worth played an important role in helping the city become a certified Blue Zones Community®. Now, a new generation of student leaders are working to sustain those healthy practices and seek new ways to integrate well-being on their campuses. More than 350 student ambassadors from 29 area schools came together in late October for the Blue Zones Project® Power 9® Camp student summit. The half-day summit, underwritten this year by the R4 Foundation, focused on developing, maintaining, and sharing healthy habits at school and beyond.
Blue Zones Project is a community-led well-being improvement initiative that supports longer, better lives. Brought to Fort Worth by Texas Health Resources, Blue Zones Project works with employers, schools, restaurants, grocery stores, faith-based organizations, and community leaders to make healthy choices easier through the implementation of practices and policies with proven links to increased well-being. Since the initiative kicked off in 2015, more than 45 area schools have become Blue Zones Project Approved, and additional schools continue to work on achieving the designation.
During the event at Trimble Tech High School, students from Fort Worth ISD, Crowley ISD, and Keller ISD participated in a variety of activities centered around the Power 9 -- principles shared by the world’s longest living people, such as moving naturally, eating with a plant slant, downshifting to relieve stress, and living with purpose. Students took part in physical activities such as Zumba, GoNoodle, 9 Square, and Drum Fit; learned yoga and downshifting techniques; and participated in a visioning workshop where they developed their own sustainability goals. Trimble Tech’s culinary arts program catered the summit’s lunch, which featured healthy vegetable and grain bowls.
Feedback about the event has been overwhelmingly positive from both students and teachers. Ana Morales, principal at FWISD’s H.V. Helbing Elementary, said her school is already implementing some of the new tools and techniques, such as mindful breathing, introduced at the summit. “I loved that students were able to make connections between many of the activities we participated in during the day and some of the well-being things we are doing on campus,” she said.
Adopting Blue Zones Project principles at school—for example, incorporating movement into lessons throughout the day, adding more fresh produce to the lunch menu, and teaching children techniques to downshift—is tied to higher levels of engagement and excellence in the classroom. “Blue Zones Project student ambassadors are the catalysts for making healthy choices easier on their campuses—from advocating for new salad bars to creating school gardens, and they are having fun doing it,” said Adjoa Brown, strategic partnerships manager for Blue Zones Project Fort Worth. “That’s important, because we know that if young people develop healthy habits early on, they will be more likely to continue those habits throughout their lives.”
“School participation is critical to our community-wide approach to improving well-being,” said Matt Dufrene, vice president of Blue Zones Project, Fort Worth. “When we work in our schools, we have a great opportunity to influence both the health and well-being of individual students, as well as our community as a whole.”
To learn more about Blue Zones Project, visit LiveLongFortWorth.com.