iStock_000006142353XSmallPeople maintain healthy nutrition and fitness

Bold Goal: Increase the number of people in the Columbus metropolitan area who achieve a healthy weight to rank among the top 5 comparable communities in the United States

Strategies

  • Engage people in healthy nutrition and/or physical activity behaviors
  • Improve the nutrition and/or physical activity environment at the institutional level (i.e. home, school, faith community, community-based organizations, and workplace)
  • Improve the food and/or physical activity environment at the community level

Programs

Arthritis Foundation      
Exercise
The Arthritis Foundation provides safe, effective community exercise programs for people living with arthritis.  Through this program, participants experience decreased pain and stiffness and increase strength, range-of-motion and balance.

Central Ohio Diabetes Association           
Health Education Nutrition         
The Diabetes Self-Management Education/Training Series offers basic nutrition, carbohydrate counting, portion sizes, meal planning and a focus on metabolic processes affecting nutrition choices and healthy living.

Children's Hunger Alliance          
Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities
To combat childhood obesity and hunger, the Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities  program provides nutrition and physical fitness education at afterschool and summer programs serving USDA-reimbursed meals/snacks.

Healthy Families, Healthy Communities
Healthy Families, Healthy Communities is a nutrition education program targeting low-income parents that utilizes an evidence-based, USDA approved curriculum specifically designed for food stamp eligible adults.

Expanding School Breakfast
The Breakfast Beginnings project focuses on increasing school breakfast participation in Franklin County school buildings in which 50% or more of the students qualify for free or reduced school meals.

Healthy & Fit at Home
The Healthy and Fit at Home program improves the nutrition and physical activity environment in the homes of Family Child Care providers and parents/caregivers in low-income communities in Franklin County.

Gladden Community House        
Recreation, Team Sports, & Food Service
The primary intent of Gladden’s Recreation, Team Sports & Food Service program is to promote lifelong active lifestyles and healthy eating habits among Franklinton and near west side children. This program is also designed to promote healthy social development in terms of social competencies and life skills.

Goodwill Columbus
Healthy Focus Program
Individuals with disabilities face three obstacles in addressing their health care: access to adaptive exercise equipment, transportation to facilities, and cost related to services/programs. To address these challenges, Goodwill Columbus has developed the Healthy Focus Program, which provides educational opportunities, fitness opportunities and wellness initiatives. This comprehensive program provides easy and affordable access to exercise, health screenings and health education classes.

Jewish Community Center           
Senior Adults
The services and activities of the New Horizons 60+ program provide older adults the essential foundation to pursue a life of optimum independence and satisfaction, supporting self-determination and maximum choice in maintaining their mental focus in life, which ultimately contributes to overall well-being through adequate nutrition and physical health.

LifeCare Alliance              
Wellness Centers
LifeCare Alliance’s wellness center program provides health and nutrition services in multiple locations throughout Franklin County. The program focuses on identification of medical risk factors, health promotion and health education-with an emphasis on the importance of nutrition and physical activity to disease prevention and disease management to low-income seniors and chronically ill individuals who are at high risk for health issues.

Meals-on-Wheels
The Meals-on-Wheels program provides meals for older, disabled and chronically ill adults, in their homes, as well as at senior community dining centers and restaurants in over twenty locations across central Ohio.  The home delivered meals provide nourishing food and conversation to homebound adults 365 days a year.

Project OpenHand-Columbus - Meals-on-Wheels Prog.
LifeCare Alliance’s Project OpenHand-Columbus - Meals-on-Wheels program delivers and provides meal to homebound clients or to a dining center for people who have HIV/AIDS living in central Ohio.

YMCA of Central Ohio   
YMCA Adult Wellness Program
The three YMCA branches from the Hilltop, Near East Side, and Northland areas will work with adults who are sedentary and/or overweight to increase physical activity.  This program will coach adults to make behavior changes that result in increased minutes of physical activity, improved nutrition intake, and successful management of blood sugar levels.

YMCA Youth & Family Fitness Program
Two YMCA branches from the Eastside and Northland areas are working with youth, who are sedentary and/or overweight, to increase physical activity and reduce obesity.  This program also works to involve parents in programming to encourage and sustain activity levels of their children.

Y-Kids Are Fit
Y-Kids Are Fit is an after-school fitness, health and nutrition curriculum designed to engage 275 school-age children in regular physical activity and to encourage and teach children to live a healthy lifestyle. The user-friendly curriculum includes pre-designed lessons that focus on improving participants’ strength, flexibility and endurance.

Activate Urbancrest
“Activate Urbancrest” is a series of programs that expands upon current programming, allowing the YMCA to serve more adolescents, families, individuals struggling with diabetes in a lifestyle that includes physical activity and nutrition.  Participants from the Urbancrest area will engage in healthy activities that move them from a sedentary lifestyle to an active lifestyle.