DAAN program shows improved healthy habits in area youth
Three years of data now shows that the DAAN healthy lifestyle programming taught in area elementary schools is having a positive impact on nutrition and physical activity in our students.
DAAN is a curriculum that focuses on nutrition and physical activity for students in grades 2, 3 and 4 in all three of New Ulm’s elementary schools. The curriculum reaches over 600 children in the area. For the first time in the 2009-2010 school year, DAAN was also provided in Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop school district.
“We’re seeing encouraging results after finishing our third year of the program in the 2009-2010 school year,” said New Ulm Medical Center Dietitian Rebecca Fliszar, RD, CSP, LD, coordinator of the program. “Soda consumption is down, fruit and vegetable consumption is up. That is definitely the way we like to see those numbers trending.”
For instance, of the students who started out with the program in second grade at New Ulm Public Schools 21.7 percent reported on their pre-survey that they had soda at least daily. By the time those same students finished the program in fourth grade, that percentage was down to 15.5 percent.
In that same group of students, 46.6 percent reported that they had fruits and vegetables less than daily at the beginning of second grade. By the end of the program in fourth grade, that number was down to 15.5 percent.
At St. Paul’s Lutheran School, 30.6 percent of second graders at the beginning of the program reported eating at restaurants at least daily. By the end of fourth grade, that number was down to 21.1 percent.
At New Ulm Area Catholic Schools, 9.1 percent of second graders reported drinking milk less than daily. By fourth grade, that number was down to 7.3 percent.
The New Ulm Optimist Club has funded the DAAN program from its inception in the New Ulm area, beginning with a generous $22,000 grant for the initial materials needed in the classrooms – such as food models, a skeleton, food bingo games, pedometers and more. The Optimist Club has since given an additional $22,000 to support the program.
“It’s important to us as a club because most of our sponsorship money goes toward kids. It’s all about how we can help the kids,” said Susan Fix, immediate past district governor for the Optimist Club. “Hopefully this will be something they can use for the rest of their life. It’s information they can carry forward into the future and take home to share with their families.”
Fix also said that with the Hearts Beat Back: The Heart of New Ulm Project becoming more a part of the daily activity in the community, “it just works so well together (with DAAN) because the kids are hearing the same healthy messages in the newspaper, at home, at school and it just starts to make sense to them. They are in tune to it.”
Fliszar also pointed out that the DAAN program puts New Ulm “ahead of the curve” as childhood wellness continues to become more of a focus nationally.
“This program is doing just what we hoped for – we begin to move the bar incrementally on health and wellness for our children,” Fliszar said. The program, she said, has also been supported by the NUMC Community Benefits Committee. “We are continually looking for ways to promote childhood wellness.”
